


Its Strange

by theinksplotch



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King, Stranger Things - Fandom
Genre: Bisexual Richie Tozier, Byeler - Freeform, Crossover, Homophobic Language, Ill tag as a i go cos idk, Internalized Homophobia, Its 1984, M/M, Mikes (hanlon) parents are still alive fight me, Nancy and Eddie are gonna be friends jshsdjsa, Pennywise comes back, Period-Typical Homophobia, Reddie, Richie and mike hate each other, Richies parents ignore him, Soft Eddie, Stranger things x It, kids cussing, richie being vulnerable
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2018-09-05
Packaged: 2019-01-04 15:12:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 24,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12171399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theinksplotch/pseuds/theinksplotch
Summary: Mike Wheeler is determined to have a normal summer.Richie Tozier is determined to drive him completely crazy.(Aka the crossover nobody asked for where Richie's forced to stay with his extended family while his parents are away and he drags his favorite pasta boy along with him)





	1. Mike

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It all started with a few bad dreams, not that it was unusual for 13 year old Mike Wheeler to have a nightmare or two once in a while - especially after the hell he and his friends had been put through last fall. 
> 
> But this felt different somehow, more real, not that he would remember it.  
> *WARNING* this chapter has period time homophobic slurs such as queer and fa* ! Read at ur own discretion pls!

 

It was stuffy in the gym.

The heaters were blasting overtime, chasing away the cold winter air outside with great big gusts of _heat_ , flushing Mike Wheeler's face pink with warmth. It stank of sweat and desperation - the musk of boys wearing too much of their fathers' cologne and girls walking around in clouds of Farrah Fawcett Hairspray stayed trapped in the room like helium in a balloon. The PTA had done their best decorating-wise, working off of parent donations - which apparently wasn't much. Crudely cut snowflakes hung on the walls like children's drawings and shitty paper snow had been littered in all corners of the gym. 

 _The Snowball, 1983_.

 _Yuck_ \- or maybe...not? Mike had never in his life thought he'd be at the _Snowball_ of all places, wearing a rented tux and shoes that pinched his toes, his palms sweaty and his collar too tight around his neck. School dances were _total_ suck fests - everybody knew that. He'd never cared enough to even _think_ about one, much less actually come to it - Mike always figured he'd rather read one of his mom's girly romance books or...or have his _tonsils_  taken out again than attend some silly school dance, but things were different this time. Because there was some cheesy slow song playing - the kind Mike swore up and down he hated, but he really didn't - and he was dancing with _El_. Her hair had grown a bit - it curled around her ears and face in delicate waves, soft and shiny against the blue disco lights. She was wearing a white dress - white like the snow, he noted - and she looked, well,  _awesome._

But Mike had something to tell her.

El smiled sweetly as they swayed to the nameless tune. "You kept your promise," she said softly.

"O-of course I did, El," he choked out, nervous energy bubbling in the pit of his stomach, icky and uncomfortable.

She smiled. "I like you."

Mike gulped. _Its now or never_ , he told himself. _You can do this_.

"I...like you too, El." He _did_ like her, that part was true. But... "But not...not in the way you want me to," he said quietly, his voice taking on some kind of desperate lilt - he _hated_ it.

Eleven frowned, her hands loosening slightly at their perches on Mike's shoulders. They swayed slowly to the music, a song Mike couldn't place - the words sounded muffled in his ears, like the way grown-ups talked on the Peanuts. "What do you mean?"

 _Yeah, what_  do _you mean?_  a little voice deep inside him hissed.  _She's a pretty girl. You do like girls, right? Oh wait..._

Mike could feel himself starting to sweat - he should've never opened his stupid mouth in the first place, _shit._ But he knew he couldn't lie to El - she'd been his first kiss, the kiss that made him realize...

"W-what I mean is...I like someone else. I like - "

His confession was cut short as El doubled over, coughing wetly into her hand. Her body heaved with each cough, as if she were trying to hack up one of her lungs. Mike leaned down to touch her shoulder. "Hey, are you oka - ?"

She yanked her arm away, and Mike frowned in concern. "El...?"

That's when she looked up at him through wide brown eyes framed with tears, her mouth stained with black with _blood._   _Holy shit, she had been coughing up blood._

"Why...?" she choked out before collapsing into a heap on the floor.

"Eleven!" Mike tried to move, but he couldn't. He was frozen, watching El bleed out onto the linoleum floor, white dress stained red, red, red. 

 _Snow tainted with blood_. 

It wasn't until Mike finally tore his eyes away from the girl on the floor that he realized everybody had stopped dancing. The kids stood in a circle around him, suffocating him. Why weren't they helping?! The love song was still playing, it sounded too loud in Mike's ears, muffled and jeering and _shit_ ,  _Too loud._

"Isn't this what you wanted?" A familiar voice broke through the noise. Mike looked up.

Will stood before him in a worn out suit, smooth hair carefully combed to the side. He was smiling at Mike, with soft green eyes and squishy, dimpled cheeks.

 _He looks good_ , the little voice in the back of Mike's mind whispered, despite everything.  _More than good._

"N-no!" Mike choked out, and he wasn't sure if he was talking to Will or himself. "Why would I want this? I _care_ about El."

"Well, you're the one who did it."

That's when Mike felt it - the peculiar weight in his left hand, heavy and unfamiliar against his palm. He looked down to see a knife in his grip, the sharp metal blade soaked in blood, _El's blood_.

"N-no..." He dropped the knife, his hands shaking. _Why would he want to stab El?_

"You did it for me, silly," Will said, as if he'd read his mind, casually stepping over El's body. The cheesy song was still playing, _never ending, never ending, never ending, never endi_

"W-what do you mean?"

"Easy there, Stuttering Bill," Will smiled, and Mike's mouth ran dry, because there was something about it that was...off. His smile was blood red against pasty skin, his teeth seemed unnaturally sharp.

"Will," Mike pleaded. "W-what are you talking about? Who's...who's Bill?" The music roared in his ears, keeping time with his erratic heartbeat, _loud, loud, loud._

Will rolled his eyes, teasing smile on his face, and Mike hated the way it squeezed his heart, _hated_ it. "You think I don't see they way you look at me when you think nobody is watching? You think I don't know that you're a great big faggot?"

This isn't Will, Mike thought. Will would never...he wasn't...

 _But you are_ , the little voice inside him said.  _You're a great big faggot. A filthy fucking queer. You know it. Will knows it. And now everybody else knows it, too_.

The kids were closing in on Mike, walking slowly and deliberately, like zombies in some horror flick. He recognized some of them; Troy, Lucas, and Dustin stood out. And they were saying something. It started off quiet at first, a few soft murmurs.

"Great big faggot," somebody whispered.

"Fucking queer," another said.

Then they started to chant.

" _Great big faggot great big faggot great big faggot -_ "

Mike looked around, tears pooling in his eyes and heat in his cheeks. He turned back to Will, intending to ask what he had done to deserve this, only it wasn't Will standing in front of him anymore. His breath hitched in his throat.

It was a clown.

A clown wearing a tuxedo, to be exact.

It would've been funny if not for they way it looked. Its face was half rotted, one of its eyes dripping blood onto the gymnasium floor. There was a crack in its skull, like somebody had smashed its head in with a baseball bat, and as far as Mike could see, there was no brain inside, only deep, black nothingness that sent waves of terror and panic coursing through his body. It was grinning at him, a terrible bloody grin that stank of rotten meat.

 _Run!_  he screamed at himself.  _Run, you idiot!_

But he couldn't. Once again, Mike was frozen, powerless, _Goddammit!_  The clown reached out and yanked him by his arm so hard, Mike was sure it had been dislocated. Its face was mere inches from his.

"Hiya, Richie!" it said cheerfully. "Didya think I wouldn't find ya?"

_Richie? Who's Richie?_

"L-let me g-go!" Mike yelled, trying and failing to pull himself away. It squeezed harder on his arm, and Mike choked out a strangled gasp. He could feel the bruises forming.

"Didya think you wouldn't float, Rich?" it grinned, blood dripping from its teeth, staining the front of Mike's tux red. "Is that what you thought?"

The clown pulled Mike closer, and the tip of its bright red nose pressed against his own.

"Beep. Beep. Richie," it whispered. It opened its mouth, and rows of jagged teeth grew upwards from its gums.

And as it was eating Mike alive, as he bled out on the linoleum floor, he could still hear his classmates, only they were chanting something different now.

_Beep beep, Richie_

_Beep beep, Richie_

_Beep beep, Richie_

_Beep beep, Richie_

_Beep beep -_

__"Mike!"_ _

He woke up with a start, panic still coursing through every cell in his body. He looked frantically around his room...but what was he looking for? He couldn't remember.

Mike sighed in relief and collapsed back into his pillow.

"It was just a dream," he muttered breathlessly. Of course. He'd had a bad dream. Not like that was anything new.

But what had it been about? He remembered seeing Will and El, but everything else was...vague. Like he was trying to watch a television show, but every face was blurred, every word bleeped out.

His mother was calling him from downstairs.

"Mike! Are you up? You're friends are here!"

Mike frowned groggily. Friends? Why were his friends here so earl - ?

Suddenly his bedroom door slammed open and before he had time to react, the air was knocked out of Mike's lungs as three bodies threw themselves on top of him.

"Ah! Get off of me!" he laughed, pushing Dustin, Lucas, and Will off so he could sit up properly. He rubbed the grogginess out of his eyes and regarded his friends tiredly.

"Hey Wheeler, the hell are you still doing in bed?" Dustin asked. Without thinking about it, Mike slid an arm around Will's shoulders and ruffled his hair. The boy grinned at him, leaning into the touch, and Mike's heart unconsciously swelled. "Yeah, did you forget about our campaign?"

"Shit!" Mike gasped, stumbling off of the bed. He'd been so caught up in remembering that dream, he'd totally forgot about the D&D campaign they'd planned for today!

"Ugh!" Lucas laughed, waving a hand in front of his face. "Did you forget to brush your teeth?"

Mike grinned, grabbing randomly at t shirts and shorts in his closet. "Up yours, Lucas," he said. "How much time do we have, anyways? Mom says we have to finish before my cousin gets here." He rolled his eyes.

"Hey, when  _is_  your cousin getting here?" Will asked.

"Yeah," Dustin added. "What was his name again? Robert?"

"Uh...I'm not sure," Mike mumbled, rifling through his sock drawer. He didn't know much about this mysterious cousin (Robert?) who would be visiting for a few weeks, and who Mike hadn't seen since he was three, not that he remembered much. A vague memory of freckles and glasses on a summer day was all he could recall.

"In a few days, I think? That gives us enough time, right?"

To be honest, he wasn't all that excited to see his cousin. Robert (?) coming over kind of ruined the mojo of things. He'd had stuff planned for this summer, normal stuff. Just him, his friends and some D&D. It just seemed like there was always something in the way: cousins, bullies, evil monsters from alternate dimensions, El disappearing...

Mike sighed. He knew she was gone, but he just wished...he didn't know what he wished anymore. He just wanted her to come back.

"Race you downstairs!" Lucas said suddenly, breaking Mike out of his thoughts. He hopped off the bed, racing out of the room.

"H-hey no fair!" Dustin cried, stumbling after him.

Will stayed behind a bit. He paused at the door, a determined look on his face. "Mike...?"

Mike gulped. "Y-yeah, what's up?" he asked.

"I..." Will let out a small sigh under his breath. "I was wondering if I could..." he rung his hands together. Mike tilted his head in confusion. "...use the bathroom before we start," he finished glumly.

Mike frowned. Will Byers had been his best friend for as long as he could remember, so Mike had gotten pretty good at reading him. Will had always been a quiet kid, but the thing was, he  _never_  kept anything from Mike. Jesus, they'd known each other since kindergarten. Mike knew about his dreams, his fears, Will told him everything. But now, things were different...Will was acting weird, flaking out on stuff the Party planned, being all secretive. Ever since the Upsidedown...Mike could feel it, the shift in their friendship. And he  _hated_  it. Didn't Will know he could tell Mike anything? It just made him so...annoyed. Last year, when the Demogorgan took Will, he'd been  _literally_  a whole dimension away...and now he was back, but Mike still couldn't reach him. God, Mike felt like a pussy even thinking about it. But...he couldn't help it. He just...he just wanted his best friend back.

 _Filthy fucking queer_ , a voice deep inside him hissed.

He averted his eyes, heat in his cheeks. Where had that come from? Mike took a shaky breath. "Yeah man. Go ahead."

Will nodded awkwardly. "Thanks. I'll see you in the basement I guess" And then he was gone.

Mike stared at the spot Will had been standing in.

What the hell was he hiding?

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked my first chapter! :) Leave a comment if you want me to continue :)  
> [My tumblr](http://nasally-voice.tumblr.com/) !!!  
> 


	2. Richie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie Tozier's parents are headed to Hawaii again - marriage reconciliation, as if a trip to a far away island would reverse the years of burnt out looks and glasses of wine. Richie didn't mind, though - not really. He just wished he didn't have to stay with his aunt all the way down in Indiana for the mean time.

 

 

"Any of you assholes interested in going on vacation with me?"

Six pairs of eyes met Richie's as he crashed into The Barrens in a typical Trashmouth-fashion, twigs snapping and fallen leaves crunching loudly beneath his battered up sneakers. They had a clearing, The Losers Club, smack dab in the middle of The Barrens, not far from the quarry, but not that far from home either.  _The In-between_  is what they all called it, because it was the place in between the real world, Derry, and their own little private universe - or at least that's what Ben always said, that poet. Anything was better than calling it 'that clearing in The Barrens', Richie always figured.

The rest of the Losers were spread out around the clearing, some leaning against trees, some sitting on rocks, others just saying fuck it and laying directly on the dirt. But they all shared one thing in common. They seemed to be dying of heat stroke. The news that morning had recorded that it would be 100 degrees in Derry that day, a goddamn summer record (Richie had done the smart thing and shoved a ton of frozen pea bags down the front of his shorts before the ride to The Barrens, although they'd all slipped out somewhere along Main Street. He'd have to duct tape those fuckers next time).

It had been a year, one year since last summer, since everything, and things were finally starting to feel normal again - or at least, as normal as they can be when nightmares fucking come to life. The week after everything happened was the worst. Richie had gone home that day feeling like a goddamn superhero. He read the comics from the paper that morning (Snoopy had been up to some particularly funny shenanigans that day if he does recall), finished off half a can of stale beer that had been sitting on the coffee table, and fallen into a deep sleep. 

And then the nightmares started.

Not so much nightmares, but memories. His fucking mind wouldn't let him forget, forced him to relive it every single night. The blood...the death...the smell of shit, fucking  _shit_  everywhere. He refused to leave his room, refused to talk to anybody. Richie remembered listening to one of Bev's metal records at full volume until it felt like his brain was turning to mush, because he'd have done anything to drown out the sickening crack of Eddie's arm breaking that seemed to play in his brain nonstop. But he realized that they couldn't get through it alone. It was just like Neibolt Street, they  _had_  to do it together. They'd all eventually just radiated towards The Barrens, like old times. The rest of the Losers had to have been going through the same thing, because they all looked like complete and utter  _shit._  Mike had bags under his eyes, Eddie's clothes were wrinkled, Stan's hair unbrushed. They didn't talk about it though. They just went to the movies and hung out at the quarry like they used to, and eventually things started to feel okay again. Summer '83 ended, they all started school as 8th graders. Shit happened. Mike joined them at Derry Middle School for the first time ever and of course, aced all of his classes; Beverly and Ben started dating and became the sweetest, most disgusting couple Richie had ever seen. And all through it, the Losers Club stayed together, and with each cigarette smoked behind the gym between Richie and Bev, each movie night spent at Stan's house, the seven of them seemed to grow closer and closer. Richie had almost started to think none of that shit had happened, that maybe it was just some bizarre dream he'd had after eating one too many ding-dongs before bed. But then he'd accidentally catch a glimpse of a jagged scar across the palm of one of the other Losers, the same kind of jagged scar Richie himself had, and he would realize it was all true.

_Everything._

It didn't matter how much Richie  _pretended_  that their little field trip to the sewers never happened, he knew they were all a _little bit_  more fucked up than they were before because of it. The dreams stopped for the most part, but the memories didn't. They would come back at the oddest times, flashing in Richie's head mid-joke, the punchline dying in his throat, forgotten, or during a movie, Richie slowly snaking his hand over to Eddie's in the darkness of the theater to remind himself that he was okay,  _they_  were all okay. It wasn't always bad, though. Some days were normal, good. But some days... weren't. Those were the days where they'd call Stan's house and his mother would say he was feeling a bit under the weather, like she was trying to convince  _herself_  that was all it was, the days where someone one skin their knee or scrape their arm, and Bev would freak out at the sight of blood. Or like when Richie and Eddie would go to watch the trains together on Saturdays,  _(Eddie_  would watch the trains, Richie would lay his head in the boy's lap and read whatever novel or comic Eddie had on him out loud in his Voices so that he could listen) and they'd have to walk past the house on Neibolt Street. Eddie would rub his arm with a grim look on his face, like he was reliving it, the bumpy ride in the basket of Mike's bike, cradling his snapped arm to his side. He still wore the cast, now decorated with names and stickers and drawings. (Richie had positioned his name just right so that the cast looked like it said 'Richie's LoVer'. Eddie had refused to talk to him for a week after but it was worth it to see the look on his face). Old Mrs. K wouldn't let him take it off, she had this batshit crazy idea that Eddie's arm was still broken under there, after a  _year._  Richie would ever admit it, but he really hated Eddie's mom. She'd done a fucking number one him, especially with that whole Asthma thing. Sometimes Eddie would still start to breathe a bit funny. He'd get a little wheezy, sometimes start coughing, but the fucker refused to even touch an inhaler (something about a gazebo?).

They all had moments like that now, little quirky, fucked up habits that they only had because of -

_(You'll float, too)_

_It._

"Richie, last time you said that, I ended up sitting in that old refrigerator box you found at the dump, pretending I was flying to the GD moon," Stan droned from the rock he sat on. He'd undone the top button of his polo and was fanning himself with his hand. "It's too hot to deal with you right now." 

"Oh, Staniel, it really does warm my heart that you still remember our fun little road trip to the moon back in 4th grade, but I've got  _real_  news this time," Richie announced.

He'd captured their interest. Bev wiped the sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand and blew her bangs out of her face. She'd been reduced to her undershirt, not that any of them but Ben really minded. They'd all kind of gotten over the shock of seeing  _Beverly Marsh_  in her underwear. Now it just kinda felt like seeing your little sister in her underwear.  _Yuck._  "What is it, Rich? Balls finally dropped?" She smirked. Richie grinned. If anyone knew how to Get Off A Good One almost as amazingly as him, it was Bev.

"Not yet Bevy, but one it does happen, you'll be the first one I call!" Richie said mockingly, plopping himself onto the ground next to them. "My folks are going to Hawaii for a while for some good marriage reconciliation blah blah blah and they're sending me to my aunt's house in Indiana for a few weeks. They said I could bring some friends if I wanted. Any takers? You may be stuck with Ol' Trashmouth for a while, but at least you get to leave  _this_  shithole town, amiright?"

Mike was the first to turn him down. "Sorry man. I wish I could, but my dad needs the extra help around the farm. Sheep need sheering 'fore they die in this heat."

"And I can't say that Aunt Meg is going to like me going to Indiana with a couple of boys," Bev said, looking apologetically at Richie. 

"It definitely doesn't help that she hates you," Ben added jokingly. Beverly's aunt Meg had moved to Derry to take care of Bev last summer before school started. She was, in Richie Tozier's Expert Opinion, a  _total_  fox.

 _Not!_  

Meg was kinda old, kinda strict, imagine Molly Ringwald's bitter grandma. It was a known fact that Meg and Richie had an ongoing rivalry, ever since that one time he accidentally walked in on her using the can on Beverly's birthday last fall (hey, it was no picnic for  _him_  either!). Richie grinned. "What are ya talking about? You couldn't cut the sexual tension between me and Old Meggy with a fucking  _machete._  She's been begging for a slice of Richie Pie since Bev's birthday, and we all know it."

There was a collective eye roll amongst his friends, and Richie grinned smugly. Thank God for the normal things in life.

"I'll ask my mom," Ben said finally. "But you can never be too sure with her." Richie nodded, understanding. Ben's mother was overprotective, but not in the fucked up way Eddie's mom was, in the normal, loving way that the rest of them only wished their mothers were. He just wished one of the Losers would come along with him. The thought of all of 'em having fun tgether while he was stuck in some boring town with his stupid cousins made something in his chest ache. 

"Wuh-wuh-well I'm puh-pretty sure I can guh-go," Bill said, reviving Richie's faith in all things holy. He was fishing through his pockets for something.

"Yeah, same here, Richie," Eddie piped up. "My mom saw two guys holding hands at the drugstore yesterday and now she thinks its possible to catch queer." He rolled his eyes. "She'll probably be happy if she found out I could leave town for a while."

Richie tried not to flinch at the word queer. Not that he  _was_  queer. He liked girls, girls like Sara Perkins from his math class, who always laughed at his jokes about the bald spot on Mr. Quimby's head, or Lisa Cooper from gym; she always got these really cool dimples in her cheeks when she smiled. He just sometimes liked to appreciate the way Bill's eyes reflected the sun like two green kaleidoscopes, and  _maybe_  sometimes his gaze lingered a bit too long on Mike's strong jaw, or the way water droplets clung to Stanley's curls after they went swimming in the quarry. And maybe,  _just maybe,_  on those Saturdays when he would lay his head in Eddie's lap, he would look up and see the afternoon sun illuminate the boy's face, and maybe, on occasion _,_ Richie would wonder what it would be like to kiss Eddie, and to have Eddie kiss him right back, all softly like in the movies, balmed lips and freckled skin under Richie's touch. Eddie deserved only the softest kisses, Richie sometimes thought on those Saturdays. The kind where he would cup the smaller boy's face in his hands and touch their foreheads together afterwards. And he would tell Eddie something  _real_  sweet, so sweet the smaller boy would raise an eyebrow and ask him what he'd done with the real Richie, and then they'd maybe kiss again.

Okay, maybe Richie was a  _little_  queer.

"Rich?"

Shit. He'd zoned out. "Y-yeah?"

It was Stanley. "Boy scouts is starting soon. Can't exactly skip it. Sorry, man." Stanley's dad was a the minister at the local Jewish Mass, as well as the leader of the local Derry Boy scouts. Stan couldn't get out of it if he wanted to..

"O-oh okay."

"You okay, Richie?" Mike asked, concern lacing his voice. "I mean, you never miss an opportunity to make fun of Eddie's mom..."

 _Queer? Mrs. K should be more worried about catching crabs,_ his mind conjured up. Too late.

"Yeah, I'm good. Just had a long day, yanno? I mean, first I was at Eddie's house with his mom, and then I had to walk to the other side of town to get  _Stan's_  mom alone - "

"Beep beep,  _Richie!"_

Richie laughed sheepishly, pushing his glasses further up his nose. "Yeah, no I was just at the optometrists."

"I knew those Coke bottles looked shinier today," Beverly remarked, grinning.

"All the better to see you, my dear," Richie said in his Granny Voice.

Bill started to get up off of the floor. He was holding a crumpled bill and some coins in his hand, sweaty from his pocket. "Alright. I cuh-can't stand this anymore. Let's gu-go get some pop." 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's the second chapter! Thank you all so much for leaving those comments, they literally made my day :)  
> Also im so sorry for taking forever on this, his chapter was supposed to be posted sooner, but I didn't have wifi for the past few days oof  
> Hope ya like it !


	3. Trashmouth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And then there were two.

 

The  _fuck_  do you mean you can't come after all, Denbrough?"

"Suh-suh-sorry, dude," Bill's voice crackled through Richie's telephone. "I was sh-shure they would suh-say yes, but when I asked my puh-parents, my muh-muh-mom started crying and muh-my dad started  _yuh-yuh-yelling_  at me! Luh-luh-like they care all of a-a su-uh-den! Luh-luh-like they're muh-my puh-puh-parents again af-after a whole yeh-year, of nuh-nuh-not giving a fuh-fuh-fuck abow-ow-t muh-muh-muh - "

Richie knew Bill was upset, because he couldn't get through a sentence without stuttering.

"Of course they give a fuck about you, Big Bill. And of they don't, forget about 'em."

( _easier said than done, fuck face_ )

Hardy-fuckin-har, Richie thought bitterly. Because he of all people was in no place to give advice about uninvolved parents, not that anybody knew that. As far as the Losers Club knew, he came home to a loving mother and father and a home cooked meal every night, when in fact, it was the exact fucking opposite. Nothing like a TV dinner and an empty house to give ya abandonment issues for life, is what he always said. And to top it all off, to ice the fucking cake, that _thing_ in the sewers decided to give him nightmares about it. Because Richie  _loved_  waking up in the middle of the night, crying for a mommy that would never come.

( _Trashmouth Tozier? More like Traumatized Tozier! Hardy-har-har_ )

But it was one thing for  _Richie's_  parents to hate him. Hell, he would too of he had him for a son. He was Trashmouth Tozier, resident fuck face of Derry, with a big ego and an even bigger mouth. No respect, no manners, and no table etiquette (the last one is something Stan always said, because he's a freak of nature who has a different fork for every type of meal). But Bill - Bill was a whole different story. He was a great son, he kept his room clean, said please and thank you, and he'd loved Georgie with all his heart. Bill Denbrough was kind, caring, smart, and just all around  _great._  He didn't deserve to be ignored, not like Richie did. The Denbroughs didn't know what the fuck they were missing out on.

He heard Bill sigh on the other line, and Richie wished he could send hugs through the telephone. "Don't sweat it, Bill. Next time, yeah?"

"Suh-suh-seeya, Trashmouth."

  
Two days until Indiana. At least Ben and Eddie are still on, he thought, hanging up the phone.

 

* * *

 

 Ben couldn't come.

"Sorry, Richie," the chubby boy told him, looking guilty the next day when the seven of them met up at The Barrens. They were all crouched on the dusty, hard packed ground, the perfect place to play marbles, and that's exactly what they were doing. Bill, Bev, Mike and Stan were currently playing, while Ben, Eddie, and Richie would have to wait their turn since they didn't have enough marbles for all of them (marbles weren't hard to come by, but extremely easy to lose, so they only had a few). Ben looked away, and his face scrunched up like he was going to cry. Poor sap. Richie put a hand on his shoulder. "Oi laddie, don't go cryin them tears now or I'll haff teh arrest yeh!" He said in his Irish Cop Voice because he knew Ben liked it best.

"Besides," he said in his normal voice, putting an arm around Eddie's waist and pulling him close. "Eddie Spaghetti is still comin' along, ain't ya, Eds?" He pinched the boy's cheek affectionately.

"Not if you keep calling me by those stupid nicknames I'm not, Trashmouth," Eddie hissed, pushing Richie away. "And quit pinching my cheeks! You're gonna stretch them out and I'll look like a chipmunk!"

"Aw, Eds," Richie started. "You already do look like a chipmunk!"

"Shut up!"

"Beep beep, Ruh-Richie!" Bill called from the floor. He pitched a sleek shiny marble across the dirt and it knocked Mike's and Bev's out of the way, much to their dismay.  _Heigh-ho Silver!_  He grinned, and Richie was once again caught in the headlights that were his eyes. They lit up like Christmas tree lights in the sun, green and full of life. He averted his gaze. "Yu-you guys are luh-lucky we weren't playing fuh-for keeps!"

They stayed in The Barrens all day, playing various games, all of them preferring to stay hidden amongst the many trees than to deal with the outside world, but eventually, sundown hit, and with the curfew still intact, they all had to head home. Richie and Eddie broke off from the rest of the group, since their houses were on the other side of town. They walked their bikes in silence, until it became too much for Richie.

"Hey, Eds - I mean - Eddie?" he blurted out suddenly, cursing himself for causing the boy next to him to flinch. He stared at the ground as he talked "You know I didn't mean that shit I said earlier, right? I was just messin'." He wasn't sure what had compelled him to apologize. He never apologized for Getting Off A Good One. But for some reason, this felt...different. This was Eddie.

"Yeah, I know, Rich," Eddie said thoughtfully. "You just never know when to keep your fucking mouth shut, do you?"

Richie looked up suddenly. Eddie was smiling at him, his lips just barely quirked up in a smirk and his eyes soft and teasing in the afternoon sunlight. Richie's mouth fell to the floor. It still amazed him, this new side of little Eddie Spaghetti, all smirks and quirked eyebrows that had butterflies in Richie's stomach every fucking time. He was still the same worrisome, wet blanket Eddie Kaspbrak  ~~Richie~~  The Losers Club knew and loved, but ever since the sewers, he'd developed this new kind of 'fuck you and your mom' attitude in addition, and Richie liked it, God, he liked it more than he was willing to admit. Who on God's great Earth invented the idea of Eddie Kaspbrak? How fucking  _dare_  him? - looking all soft, with his stupid smirk and his fucking hair and his eyes and  _him_  in fucking general? God, Richie was actually speechless. This should be in the fucking papers: BREAKING NEWS: LOCAL BOY RENDERS RICHIE 'TRASHMOUTH' TOZIER SPEECHLESS WITH A SINGLE FUCKING LOOK.

  
"Heh, I g-guess not," he finally managed to choke out, averting his eyes carefully.

  
They were at Eddie's house now.

  
"See you tomorrow," the boy called from his front door as Richie watched him leave.

  
"You mean, you're still coming to Indiana with me?" He was sure Eddie would've backed out if he knew it was just going to be the two of them.

  
Eddie scoffed. "You think a little teasing from  _you_  is going to make me miss out on a chance to get away from my mother for a few weeks? That's more bullshit than the gazebos!"

  
Then he was gone, the door to his house shutting behind him. Richie smiled, shaking his head.  _They're called placebos, dumbass_.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Third chapter! Hope you liked it! All your guys's comments make me so happy omg <33! Until next week


	4. Eddie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The bus ride to Hawkins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! Sorry I'm so late with this chapter, but I had a lot of ideas and couldn't really narrow it down until now. I really hope ya'll enjoy reading this, cos I'm super excited to share it with you! Again, thank you all for the great comments !! :))

 

Eddie Kaspbrak liked to believe he had a pretty decent memory.

He wasn't like Stan, who could memorize an entire Scouts' worth of bird facts at the drop of a hat - or Ben, who mumbled the lines of _Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken_ under his breath while he studied like they were song lyrics (Eddie supposed they were, in a way).

Eddie was good at remembering things like dates, times, numbers - he was good at reminding the Losers (specifically the more scatterbrained ones, ie. Richie, Bev, Bill) about tests, due dates, things like that ( _Richie, study for your Chem test on Wednesday, Bev, make sure you feed your cat, that poor thing hasn't eaten in three days!_ ). He supposed he had his mother to - to put it loosely, _very loosely_ \- thank for all that, considering the 300 and 1 pill capsules she had 'im swallowing throughout the day - each one with its own special beep programmed in Eddie's old casino watch. He was sure his mind worked a lot like his watch - _beep beep! Richie's birthday is March 27, beep beep! Stan found a hummingbird the other day just by the Kissing Bridge around 8:23..._

The point is, Eddie's memory had always been pretty damn sharp.

Until now, that is.

Last summer played back in his head much like the way his mother flipped through channels on their old televison - short and quick, and  _hopelessly_ incomplete, leaving Eddie confused and annoyed with himself, begging for the remote to _change them back_. Every once in a while, Eddie would get that little _beep beep_ in his head - a blurry little memory flashing behind his eyes quicker than lightning, channel 1 - an airborne rock hitting Richie right in his freckled face - then the channel would change - _click_ , Bill stood on the porch of the house on Neibolt ( _walking into this house is easier than walking into my own_ ) - _click_ - Beverly Marsh grinned, a pack of women's products hidden rather awkwardly behind her back, Ben tumbled down into their lives _Mike and the basket stuck to the front of his bicycle Eddies mother and her lies and her placeboes Georgie Georgie Georgie Denbrough where did he go Why was Richie holding a baseball bat why did he look so goddamn scared?_  

The memories played back quickly, much too quick for Eddie to catch them most of the time. He figured he should be worried - an entire chunk of time had literally vanished from his mind, leaving empty spaces in his head that he couldn't even begin to fill. He should've been freaking out at the thought of Alzheimer's or Cancer or something...but he wasn't, surprisingly.

Because something in Eddie didn't _want_ to remember last summer. He wasn't even sure why - It seemed as though things hadn't changed much for the Losers Club anyways, save for its three newest members. Yet, Eddie could feel it, that slight shift in the atmosphere - _why does it look like Richie hasn't slept in days why does Mike flinch at every loud noise why does Stan have those weird scars on the side of his face whywhywhy?_   It was like trying to finish a puzzle without having all the pieces. But he wouldn't bring it up, it all just seemed too delicate, a dam made out of paper mache.

Delicate, Eddie despised the word, despised the way his mother had shoved it own his throat like it was one of her precious pills.

_Eddieeeee, what did I tell you about playing in the quarry? You're much to delicate for that!_

_Eddieeeee, PE is too rough for a delicate boy like you!_

_Bullshit._ Bullshit pills for bullshit illnesses that still felt so _real_ to Eddie and he hated it - hated that even the _thought_ of pressing his lips to the cool mouth of his inhaler could calm him almost instantly, _hated_ that he couldn't do anything without hearing his mother's voice in his head.

And then, he'd started to hear a new voice, a voice that sounded too familiar to be made up - like an old memory, only it wasn't old at all. It was fresh, festering, like an open wound, and it was bleeding all over Eddie's life.

_I'll do it for a dime!_

" _I'll do it for a dime_ ," somebody said out loud, ripping Eddie out of his thoughts. "E-excuse me?" he choked out.

The Greyhound that was supposed to take them from Maine to Indiana was dimly lit, smelly, and basically Eddie's worst nightmare on wheels. He shivered, wishing he was wearing more than a T-shirt and a pair of overall shorts ("Cute, cute, _cute!"_ Richie had exclaimed that morning when they met up at the bus station to leave for Hawkins, much to Eddie's annoyance). It was dark out, the only thing Eddie could really see through the dirty windows were the taillights of passing cars. And it was quiet, the only sounds on the bus came from the low rumble of the engine and the old lady a few seats over snoring into her purse. Well, all that and Richie, who'd been chattering on about the usual Trashmouth nonsense since Ohio. Richie had a thing about silence - he absolutely _needed_ to fill it. Eddie had never really been sure why - Richie being Richie, he guessed. He couldn't really expect himself to even  _begin_ to understand the thoughts running through the curly haired head of his best friend. He imagined reading Richie Tozier's mind would be a lot like walking directly into the middle of traffic, though - loud and fast, thoughts zooming by at a thousand miles an hour. 

The lanky boy sat in the seat next to Eddie, folded haphazardly into himself like a pretzel - one of his bony knees poking uncomfortably into the softness of Eddie's side ( _Why can't you ever sit_ right _, Trashmouth_ , Eddie could almost hear Stan sigh). The flickering bus lights illuminated only half of his face, making him look less like Richie and more like something out a nightmare Eddie had not too long ago. He remembered it so vividly, it made him sick  - Richie had been kissing, tongue _warm_ in Eddie's mouth, fingers kneading softly into the softness of the smaller boy's waist through his jeans. _What are you looking for, Eddie?_ he'd chanted, pulling away for Edie to get a good look at his _rotting_ face, gray with decay and death.

_Eddieeee, you're sick, you poor thing!_

"I _said,_ Eds, do ya have the time?" Richie frowned, rolling his eyes.

Eddie exhaled slowly, releasing the grip on his cast covered arm. Why was he being so paranoid?

_I don't like how dark it is in here i don't like how empty it is i don't like how i can't see richie's entire face holy shit_

"Uh," Eddie managed smartly, glancing at his watch. "9:40," he said, annoyance replacing fear. "Congratulations. We've officially been on this shitty, smelly bus for 16 hours and 25 minutes!" He squirmed uncomfortably. "I still don't see why your parents couldn't just drive us to Hawkins. It would be a lot safer than riding the fucking Greyhound by ourselves for 17 hours, where we could get _murdered,_ if I might add! _Jesus,_ if my mom knew where I was right now, she'd have an - "

"Aneurism?" Richie asked, grinning smugly, and the pressure in Eddie's chest eased up a bit.

"Yes," he sighed.

"Hey, don't sweat it, Eds. Your mom gets a little aneurism every time I - "

Eddie didn't wait to hear the rest of Richie's train wreck of a sentence. "Keep calling me Eds and I'll stick my foot so far up your ass, it'll come out of your mouth!" He said with a scowl, trying to appear threatening, but he knew in his heart of hearts he looked about as threatening as a constipated baby.

Richie batted his eyelashes at him. "Is that a promise, Mista K?" he drawled in his Southern Belle Voice.

Eddie put his face in his hands. "I hate you," he said, defeated.

"And I love you, Spaghetti-Man. Almost as much as I love your mom!"

Eddie groaned. God, if he didn't get off this bus soon, Hawkins PD would be investigating the murder of Richard Tozier.

"Speaking of Ol Mrs. K," Richie added with a frown. "Just how the _fuck_ did you get her to let you leave Derry? Was she replaced by an alien clone or something?" Richie leaned in close, in mock seriousness. "Oh my God, Eds, blink twice if you're being brainwashed by an alien clone."

Eddie shoved his face away with an eye roll. "I'm not being brainwashed by an alien, dipshit!"

"That's what they programmed you to say!"

"It _is_ weird, though..." Eddie said this more to himself than Richie. He turned to look put the window again, focusing on nothing in particular. A car passed by. Then another. "I mean, she said I could go with you right after I told her about it, and when I asked her why, she told me it was because I'd been a _good little boy_."

Richie sucked on his teeth (Eddie hated when he did that). "But you're always a good little boy," he said, only a hint of a smirk I'm his voice. "The only person I've ever met that has a stick further up their ass than you is Stan! And that's saying something."

A pair of taillights momentarily blinded Eddie as the car they belonged to zoomed by his window. "Gee, thanks," he deadpanned.

Eddie wanted to believe his mother had seen the error in her ways, wanted to believe that Sonia Kaspbrak had changed for the better. Who knows--maybe her letting him go to Hawkins with Richie was her trying to loosen her grip on him a bit, show him that she didn't see him as a delicate little boy anymore, but a little part of Eddie would always be looking for her scheme.

"Um, besides," Richie added, fingers suddenly fidgeting nervously in his lap. He wasn't looking at Eddie, eyes trained on the backs of the seats in front of them.

Then suddenly he was - looking at Eddie, eyes dark and soft and almost comically warped behind the lenses of his glasses. Only Eddie wasn't laughing - he was _frozen_ , staring back into dark pools of night like a deer caught in headlights. "I'd... I'd never let anything happen to you, Eds...okay?" he said softly, and something in Eddie's chest _tugged._

Eddie gulped. Richie had that look on his face again, like he was trying to tell him something without really saying it. He'd been looking at Eddie like that a lot lately. He just didn't understand, didn't understand why out of all the 7 billion something people on planet Earth, did Trashmouth Tozier have to have pretty freckles grace his nose and cheeks, or soft messy curls that stuck up in every direction and the most horrible sense of humor and stupid glasses that magnified his stupid pretty eyes that always looked at Eddie so _softly._

_Eddieeee, don't look at those filthy men! You might catch queeeer!_

His breath hitched, and he subconsciously reached for his fannypack. He made a big show of throwing it away last year, but he'd bought a new one the next day (What? They were efficient!). It didn't really serve as a mini medicine cabinet anymore, though. He didn't even bring his inhaler, because it was _bullshit_ , and he _didn't need it he didn't need it he didn't need it._

_There ain't enough pills in the world to cure what you got, Girlyboy!_

"What's the matter Spaghetti-head? Did ya just realize how handsome I am?" Richie said suddenly, an awkward laugh bubbling in the back of his throat.

"Quit calling me that!" he snapped, but Richie only laughed. It was a loud, obnoxious laugh, and the snoring old lady woke up with a startled yelp, and maybe Eddie started to laugh, too. Suddenly the bus didn't seem so scary, even if he was on his way to a whole different state, with different people, and different everything, at least he wasn't alone, at least Eddie had this ridiculous boy by his side, even if all he did was brag about the size of his dick and crack jokes about Eddie's mother.

"If you're handsome then I guess I'm Madonna," Eddie said, still shaking with laughter.

"Well you can be my material girl anytime, Eds!"

"Beep fucking beep, Richie."

The bus came to a stop.

"This is Hawkins," the driver called from the front.

The two boys scrambled out of their seats, bags in hand and legs numb from all the sitting. They hopped off the Greyhound, into the quiet bus station, nearly empty and foreign in the darkness of the night. Something about it didn't sit right with Eddie - something about the soft flicker of one of the lampposts, the cold summer breeze whistling through the empty station like an ancient song...

It was Strange.

Richie used the payphone to call the his aunt and they bought Cokes from the vending machine before finally settling on an old wooden bench. Richie pulled a worn out pack of cards from his pocket, waving them in Eddie's face. "Waddaya say, Edster? How's about a good ol' fashion game o' strip poker?" he said in his Italian Mobster Voice, although it sounded more like his Richie With Cotton Balls in His Mouth Voice.

"Do you even know what strip poker _is_ , Trashmouth?" Eddie asked with an eyeroll. The late night summer breeze picked up, rustling through his clothes and making him shiver. Richie downed his Coke and pulled off his hoodie, tossing it over to Eddie like it was nothing. Eddie stared at it in awe, the fabric soft in his hands. Richie's sweater, bright red and about 2 times Eddie's size, still warm from his body heat. Eddie couldn't explain why the thought made his face go hot. He put it on, taking in the scent of laundry detergent and sweat, and something else, something entirely Richie. It was making his head feel all fuzzy. Weird.

"Sure I can, Eds. Its just like Go Fish, only ya get to get naked," Richie wriggled his eyebrows, rubbing up against Eddie all the while making loud over exaggerated moaning sounds in his ear.

Eddie shoved him off, "Ugh, get off me! I don't need to hear what it sounds like when your jerking off to He-Man!"

"Shit! Eddie Spaghetti Gets Off A Good One!" Richie shouted, jumping up onto the bench and shouting into the night. "Did ya hear that folks!? The Ol' Edster just claimed that I would like to fuck He-Man! Give him a hand everybody!"

"Richie!" Eddie hissed. "Get the fuck down from there before somebody hears yo - "

"Richard, honey, is that you?" somebody called.

 

 


	5. Mikey Boy Wheelie Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The moment we've all been waiting for. Wheeler meets Tozier, and worlds collide.

 

"All I'm saying is, if it came down to it, Cujo would definitely kick Freddy Krueger's ass."

"Dustin, don't be stupid! Cujo is _dog._ Freddy Krueger is literally the stuff of nightmares!"

"Hey, Cujo is a rabid animal! Are you really telling me he doesn't scare the shit out of you?"

"Yes!"

They were coming close to the eighth hour of their campaign, and it was safe to say Lucas and Dustin were getting irritable.

It was humid in Mike's basement - something about the instillation, his dad was always grumbling - the only thing protecting him and his friends from heat strokes was the small wire fan blowing semi-cool air at their table.

"Silence!" Mike cut through the argument, dungeon master style. He turned the page of his D&D gameplay book and scanned it before looking up at his friends around the table. "A new enemy approaches you in the House of Horrors. The sound of demented giggling gets closer as you are faced with..."

Lucas, Dustin, and Will looked at him in anticipation. The table they sat at was littered with snacks and figurines, it was dead quiet, Mike was sure he'd be able to hear a pin drop. The calm before the storm, he suddenly thought.

"An Evil Clown!" he slammed the figurine on to the game board dramatically. A little painted clown smiled up at them with a sour grin. "Lucas, its your roll."

Lucas smirked, rubbing his hands together. "Evil clown? More like easy clown. This'll be like taking candy from a baby. What do I have to roll?"

"Don't get too cocky," Will advised. He was always the practical one, calm and calculated. Will the Wise. He glanced around the table, then at Mike. "What level?"

Mike glanced at the gameplay book.

"Level 6, with bite and claw abilities, you need to roll over a 12 to destroy it." Lucas picked up the die.

"He gets closer as we speak, his razor sharp teeth grow out of his gums, and he's hungry, hungry for blood," Mike tensed up as he said it. Razor sharp teeth grow up out of his gums? Why did that sound so familiar? "Hey, have we played this monster before?" he asked, breaking out of character.

"No, remember, Dustin just got this figurine last week," Will said.

"Alright, alright, gimme a sec." Lucas stood up.

"Oh no, not the routine," Dustin groaned.

"Oh, yes," Lucas grinned. "The routine."

Lucas always had to do this lame routine before he rolled against a monster above level five, for "good luck". He shook the die in his hands, spun around three times, and then did that weird 'hee hee' Michael Jackson move. He repeated the process three times.

"The Eater of Children laughs at your silly routine! Nothing will stand in its way, it will feast upon you all soon enough! _You'll all float,_ " the words spilled out of his mouth like vomit, fear racked through Mike's body as he said it. Where had _that_ come from?

 _I think you know,_ something in the back of his mind whispered.

"Godammit Lucas!" Dustin snapped Mike out of his thoughts. Lucas was on his third 'hee hee'.

"Just roll already!"

"Mike!" his mother called from upstairs. Mike glanced at his digital watch. It was 10 on the dot. His friends were going to have to leave soon.

"Just a minute!" he answered.

"Lucas, you need to roll," Will said. "Or else were doomed."

"Mike!"

Mike rolled his eyes. "I'll be up in a second!" He checked the gameplay book again.

"Okay," Lucas said, sitting back down. "Its time to..."

Silence.

Mike looked up from the book. All three of his friends were staring at the space directly behind him, the foot of the basement stairs, mouths agape. "What?" he asked.

"' _Sup_ , fuckers." 

Mike whirled around at the sound of the unknown voice, only to come face to face with well, _himself_. 

"I just came from picking up your cousin and his friend. They're coming down to say hi," he heard his mom say a second too late.

"Holy..." Will started.

"Shit," Dustin finished in awe.

The gameplay book slipped out of Mike's limp hands, landing on the floor with a thud.

The boy in front of him wore thick glasses and a faded Looney Tunes shirt over some jeans with rips in both knees. His converse were dirty. His hair was messy. He didn't look _exactly_ like Mike, but enough so to give Mike vertigo, enough to make him feel like he was looking at himself through a slightly distorted mirror. The other boy's expression looked how Mike felt, wide eyed and slack jawed. His glasses made his eyes look too big, with his mouth hanging open like that he resembled a fish out of water. Mike wasn't sure how long the two of them stayed like that, frozen. It could've been hours, if not for Lucas awkwardly clearing his throat, snapping him out of his trance.

Mike got up from his seat and pointed, half expecting the other boy to mirror his actions. "You...look like...me," he said dumbly.

Mike wasn't sure what he was expecting, but it wasn't for the other boy to look him up down, a shrug on his shoulders.

 "Nah."

_Nah?_

Mike blinked. "Huh?"

It was then, that Mike noticed the small boy huddled slightly behind him. The boy sighed, rolling his eyes, " _Jesus_."

His cousin threw an arm around his friend, grinning cheekily.

"I don't see it," he said simply. What the hell?

"How can you _not_ see it?!" Dustin stood up suddenly. He shoved his hat on his head, then took it off. "You two are like...like clones! Government enhanced clones!"

"That's some Hawkins Lab type of shit," Lucas said, nodding. Mike stiffened. He remembered last year, a red lipped woman pulling him aside after El had disappeared. ' _If you tell anybody about what happened here in Hawkins, it could be bad for your family, Michael,'_  her voice echoed in his head, like a ghost. She hadn't said it out loud, but he knew what she meant by that:  _We're always watching._  Mike knew it, Lucas knew it, they all did. They were probably watching right now.

"Are you telling me, you seriously don't see _any_ resemblance between the two of us?" Mike changed the subject, looking at the other boy. "None at all?" 

"Nope," he said, a shit eating grin resting on his features, _Mike's_ features. Mike bristled. "I mean, I'm clearly the more handsome one. And my dick is probably bigger, too."

His friend elbowed him in the side. "Don't be a trashmouth, Trashmouth!" he hissed.

"Yeah, yeah," Trashmouth said dismissively. He stuck his hand out for Mike to shake. "How do ya do? Richie's my name, jokes are my game." 

_Richie._

Just then, something bubbled up to the surface a Mike's mind. A flicker of a memory. But just as fast as it had come, it was gone.

"And this cutie here is my best friend, Eds," Richie said it in a funny accent, like he was trying to be British or something. Weird.

"My name is _not_ Eds," Not-Eds deadpanned. Everything about him looked neat, from the way his wavy brown hair had been combed neatly atop his head to his clearly used, yet well kept sneakers. Mike could see the white of a cast poking out from one of the sleeves of his giant sweater - a broken arm, probably. Mike wondered how he could even be friends with someone like Richie, who looked like he'd just rolled out of bed that morning, threw some pants on, and walked out the door. Not-Eds smiled apologetically at Mike, crinkling his freckled nose at Richie.

 _Pretty,_ that voice hissed. _A pretty boy._  Mike ignored it.

"My name's Eddie. What's yours?"  
  
"Mike," he answered. "These are my friends, Dustin, Lucas, and Will." He pointed at each of them as he said their names.

"Hey, is that The Clash on your T-shirt?" Richie asked. Will's green eyes lit up at the mention of his favorite band. He was wearing Johnathan's old T-shirt, it was a bit big around the neck and the sleeves were folded up several times, but Will loved the shirt, he said he'd keep wearing it even if he never grew into it. He grinned, his whole face lighting up. "Yeah! You like 'em?" Mike bristled. Who the hell was this kid to walk into _Mike's_ house, with _Mike's_ face and make _Mike's_ best friend smile like _that?_

"Hell yeah, I do!" Richie exclaimed. "Aw man, this is so cool. I never met another kid who listens to the decent music! Eds here only owns fucking Frank Sinatra records. He's a square."

"Hey!" Eddie said.

"Will, your mother is here to pick you up!" Mike's mother was at the top of the basement stairs. "And Mike, say goodbye to your friends and show Richie and Eddie where to wash up for dinner!"

"That's our cue," Dustin sighed. He and Lucas got up, backpacks in hand. "But before we leave - " Dustin turned to Richie and Eddie. "In a fight between Cujo and Freddy Krueger, who do you think would win?" Mike rolled his eyes. "Dustin, would you give it a rest?" 

"Wait, wait! I just wanna hear what they have to say!" Dustin looked hopeful.

"Definitely Freddy," Richie said. "I mean, think about it - Freddy Krueger's got those long ass claws, he's a _monster._ Cujo is just a fucking dog who missed his annual rabies shot. Freddy would slice through that pup and invite all his murderer friends for a barbeque." 

"Yeah, I'm gonna have to agree with Richie on this one," Eddie said. "And I _hate_ having to do that."

"Thank you!" Lucas exploded. He clapped them both on the back. "Welcome to Hawkins!" Will laughed.

 _"What?!_ But Cujo is a rabid animal! _Rabid!"_  

"Time to go," Lucas gabbed the back of Dustin's shirt and dragged him up the basement stairs, still complaining. _"Rabid!"_ he said one last time, and then the two were gone. Mike grinned. 

"I should probably go too before my mom freaks out and rampages through your house," Will said, getting up. Ever since Will's disappearance, Joyce had been a little, well...overprotective, not that Mike could blame her.

"I'll walk you out," he said quickly. 

"Here," Will handed Richie a cassette tape from the pocket of his shorts as he passed. "Its got all kinds of cool stuff on it. Dustin, Lucas and Mike wouldn't really like it, but you might." Richie gabbed for the tape, Mike saw their fingers brush during the exchange.

"Hey, thanks a lot, Wilbur. You know, you're pretty fucking cool," Richie stuck the tape in his back pocket. Will positively beamed.

Mike frowned. "Well, you should get going," he said to Will, not quite sure what this hot feeling bubbling in his chest was. He glanced at the newcomers. "And you guys can follow me upstairs and I'll show you where the bathroom is."

"Will do, Cuzzy-Wuzzy," Richie said. 

Mike frowned in confusion. "What...did you just call me?" 

Richie pushed his glasses further up his nose. "A nickname. Since I already forgot your real one." 

_Mike! Its Mike, you best friend stealing asshole!_

Mike smiled, but it felt more like a grimace. "Mike," he said stiffly. 

They all started to head upstairs, the wooden steps creaking beneath their sneakers. They were halfway up before Will had to go back for his backpack. "I'll get it," Mike hurried down and snatched the pack off of the table.

"Don't worry Edster," he heard Richie say. "There has to be somebody in this house that listens to Frank Sinatra. Yo, Mikey, your grandma live here by any chance?" he called.

"Beep beep, Richie!"

Mike froze at the foot of the stairs.

Suddenly, it all came flooding back.

The dream.

The snowball.

El. Will.

The clown.

Richie.

_Beep beep, Richie._

_Beep beep, Richie._

_Beep beep, Richie._

_Beep be_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope this lived up to the hype (ik how excited some people were for Richie and Mike to meet lmao). Again, tysm for all the nice comments, my heart is so happy when I read them. Also, I'm really sorry if I butchered D&D, I've never actually played it before, but I did do some research before writing this (the evil clown, eater of children is an actual thing tho,like I'm not even playing. Hecka convenient for the story so that's pretty lit). Anywaaaays, hope ya'll enjoyed this chapter (sorry it was so short)


	6. Dustin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dustin has quite the strange encounter...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so this took actually FOREVER to write cos I kept having to rewrite it over and over oof, so I'm SO sorry for the wait. Anywaaays, you already know I had to show my boi Dustin some love so heres a chapter about him. Tbh idrk bout this chapter but hope ya like it :))  
> (Also lemme just apologize for the three million typos in this cos my spell check wasn't working)

 

Dustin Henderson was _not_ afraid of the dark.

Sure, he still slept with a night light, and his celler was a little creepy without the lights on, but he wasn't _scared_ of the dark - no, it definitely wasn't that. It was just, the dark was mysterious, unknown. You never know what the hell is lurking in the shadows, waiting to pounce, waiting to _feed._  Maybe he was being paranoid, or maybe he'd just watched one too many horror movies, at least that's what his mom always said. _All those big screen pictures will rot your brain, Dusty,_ she would tell him, because she was old fashioned like that. That's not even the half of it, Dustin would think drily, because it was one thing to watch some scary shit at the movie theaters - a large Coke in his left hand and a bucket of extra buttery popcorn in his right - it was another thing to _live_ it. A flesh-eating creature, a girl that could move things with her mind, an alternate demention? It almost sounded like its own movie, only it wasn't. Because it was real freaking life, and Dustin wasn't sure how to feel about that. No popcorn here - just Dustin and his friends still trying to figure out what the _hell_ happened last fall. The line between fantasy and reality wasn't even a line anymore, it was a fence, and that fence had a huge, gaping hole in it big enough to fit the demogorgan, and maybe other things too, and that's why. That's why darkness equals danger. Everybody knew it, well everybody except those idiots from the slasher films (Brad, I think I heard a noise down in the dark, scary basement. Let's go _towards_ it!).

So when Dustin stepped off the Wheeler's curb, Lucas by his side, the first thing he did was switch on the large light between the handles of his bike. It flickered on with a soft metal click, illuminating the street about three feet in front of him in a pale yellow glow.

"Hey, that Richie kid is pretty weird right?" Lucas asked, switching on his own bike light. Dustin tore his eyes away from the darkened street before him to face his friend. They stood on the gravle directly in front of Mike's house, just beyond the clean cut lawn. The summer breeze ruffled through his hair, and he pulled his cap on to block it. Sometimes, Dustin felt like he was in his own movie, at times like these when the wind blew just right, or when the silence was just too sinister to be real. A horror movie, _why did it always have to feel like a horror movie?_

"Yeah, totally. Didya see the way Mike was looking at him? I think he hates him."

"Mike hates everybody," Lucas said, with a shrug. Which was true. After El...dissapeared, Mike had kinda become a hermit. He was hostile towards almost everyone, and the only places he bothered to go to besides his own house were the arcade and Will's place. Honestly it would've been weirder if Mike had _liked_  Richie, especially considering the new kid's...interesting personality traits. Richie had a big mouth, Dustin had gathered that much from the two minutes he'd known him. Even his friend Eddie seemed a little annoyed by him. Trashmouth, he called him. It fit.

The wind picked up again, and in one of those horror movie moments, Dustin's bike light started to flicker.

On, on.

On, off, on, on.

It seemed almost like Morse code, he thought, like maybe it was trying to tell him something. 

On, off, on, on.

"No. No, no, no," he mumbled, wacking it with the palm of his hand. It flickered a few more times and then turned off for good. Because now was the perfect time for the battery to run out of juice. Dustin sighed. "Goddammit!"

"Stop being so overdramatic, its not even that dark," Lucas said. "Just pedal fast."

Dustin scoffed. "Yeah, easy for you to say! You live across the street!" He pointed the the red bricked house with the cherry tree in the front yard across from them. All of the windows but the upstairs left were darkened, meaning Lucas's parents were still up, and Dustin did _not_ wanna know what they were doing. _"You_ don't have to ride your bike four blocks in the dark, _alone!"_

"Well, its not my fault you're a big baby, Dustin!"

Dustin sputtered. "Are you shitting me - its dark! Something could be lurking!"

Lucas rolled his eyes. "Like what?" 

"You know...like the demo - "

"What the hell, man?" His hand came into contact with Dustin's arm, stopping him halfway through his sentence. Lucas glanced around nervously, like he thought those stupid scientists from Hawkins Lab were going to pop out of Mike's bushes and yell "HA!". Dustin rolled his eyes. And people called _him_ overdramatic?

"You _know_ we can't talk about that stuff!" Lucas hissed.

"Look, all I'm saying is, I can't trust what's real or not anymore!" Dustin threw his hands up in the air in frustration. "I mean, what's next, Steve Harrington turns out to be the teenage freaking werewolf?" Dustin knew he was over exaggerating, but in his defense, the guy had a _lot_ of hair.

"Yeah, yeah, just try not to run into Cujo on the way home _Dusty,"_  Lucas said with an eyeroll, and then he was gone across the street, leaving Dustin to flip off his empty front lawn. So he shouldered his backpack and turned to face the darkened, empty street, gripping the handles of his bike.

"Shit," Dustin sighed, and then he was off, his legs pumping fast, so fast that ever so often his sneaker would slip off the pedal and scrape against the gravle. But he didn't care about his shoes at the moment. The faster I pedal, the faster I'm home, the faster I don't die, he thought. It wasn't like it would take Dustin very long. He knew the route by heart - afterall, he'd been using it for years. Down Maple Street, past Barol, and Harvard, then Terence, and finally to the corner of Cornwallis and Kerley, just outside the woods. Mirkwood, they all called it. Dustin hummed as he biked, some song he heard playing on Mike's mom's radio as he left that managed to get itself stuck in his head.

_Every bond you break, every step you take, I'll be watchin' you._

Great, Dustin thought grumpily. Because _that_ was the perfect song to have stuck in his head while riding at night, _alone._ Yet, here he was, alone, at night, humming a song about a creepy stalker.

Dustin was so preocupied with the irony of the situation, he didn't see the stray cat until it was too late. It was a huge tabby, sitting in the middle of the street, staring at him like it was daring him to hit it. 

Dustin swerved out of the way a string of curse words erupting out of his mouth as he missed the stupid cat by an inch and went airborne. He flew past the handles of his bike and landed on the street, the gravel scraping his hands and knees in the process. He groaned in pain and flopped onto his side, cradling his bloody hands to his chest. "Why me? What have I done to deserve this?" 

The overdramatic side of Dustin considered just laying in the street and waiting for a car to end his suffering.

That is, until he heard the growling.

Dustin sat up, looking around. He realized he was on Mirkwood now, his bike lay undamaged a few feet away, although the cat was nowhere in sight. He was at the fork in the road, where Terence Street ended and Mirkwood began, splitting into Cornwallis and Kerely - and just down Cornwallis, illuminated by a streetlight, was a big ass dog.

It wasn't just a dog, it was a freaking beast, a monster (a dogster, Dustin thought). And it didn't look too pleased to see him, either. It was growling, white foam dripping out of the corners of its snarling mouth. Dustin scrambled upright, trying not to piss himself. He suddenly wished he was alone again. "N-nice doggie," he said nervously. Unfortunately, that only seemed to make things worse. The beast crouched down, its back arching. Holy shit it was going to pounce at him!

Wait a second.

_Wait just a goddamn second._

That dog looked familiar.

Why did that dog look so familiar?

And then it barked, a loud, vicious bark that ripped through the silence of the night. That was when Dustin realized it. 

 _Cujo._  

"Holy shit, its freaking Cujo!" he squeaked. 

Dustin sprinted over to his bike, "SHIT!" 

He yanked it off of the ground ("SHIT!") and hopped on. "SHIT!" 

He could hear it running after him as he rode, faster than any dog he'd ever seen. It sounded more like he was being chased by Godzilla. The pounding of its paws on the street and the huff of its breath kept Dustin going, but Cujo was gaining on him, he could feel it. He pedaled down Kerely Street, faster than he'd ever pedaled before, the wind biting at his cheeks and howling in his ears. Dustin clenched the handles of his bike, wincing as they dug into the scrapes on his palms. He could feel its breath on the back of his neck now. Holy shit holy shit holy shit holy SHIT.

That's when Dustin heard the ferocious snapping of jaws.

He yelped as the dog captured the back of his T-shirt between its teeth and tore off a piece. "OH MY GOD, I'M GONNA DIE!" Dustin yelled. His house was so close. But Cujo was gaining. 

And then he saw it. The white, Victorian style house at the very end of the street. The porch light was on, illuminating the front door like a beacon of hope shining in the night. He was so close...

The second he was on his front lawn, Dustin threw his bike onto the grass and pushed the large metal trashcan over to try and slow Cujo down. He didn't dare look back to see if the dog was still chasing him. "MOMMY!" 

His mom opened the door almost immediately, she'd probably been waiting up for him. "Dusty, what's the matter? You're scaring Mews," she said worriedly. Dustin ducked past her and slammed the door shut, locking each and evey bolt. He leaned against the hard wood, sinking to the floor. The foyer in his house had always seemed so big to him, but now it was too small, the cream colored walls felt like they were closing in on him, and the family pictures hanging from them seemed to mock him. God, why could he feel his heartbeat in his stomach? 

His mother stood over him, the little orange tabby tucked in her arms hissed at him. "Dusty?" 

He looked up at her, eyes wild and pulse stuttering. "Cujo was chasing me!" 

His mother gasped dramatically. 

And then she started to laugh. 

"Oh, Dusty, you're so silly!" she giggled.

Dustin blinked. "But - " 

"Go change into your pj's," she told him, still laughing, and then she was gone, Mews still tucked in her embrace.

Dustin leaned his head against the door, still trying to catch his breath. There was no freaking way that dog was Cujo...right? That would've been -

"Crazy," Dustin said out loud.

What the _hell_ just happened? Was he stuck in some kind of endless nightmare that kept sending monsters after him and his friends? He glanced sideways, at the window on the right side of his door - the kind that was used to look through and see who was ringing the doorbell. Once Dustin managed to catch his breath, he gathered the courage to take a peek.

He shimmied over, 'Nam style and looked through.

He could see his front yard through the window, where he'd thrown his bike and knocked over the trashcan, but no dogster. It was gone, hopefully for good. Dustin sighed. Hopefully, some sleep would help him realize what had just happened was _completely_ insane. He was about to turn away and head off to bed when his bike light started to flicker again. 

On, off. 

On, off, on, on.

Wait a second. 

On, off, on, on.

Those patterns...

Off, on, on, on.

It _wa_ _s_ Morse code! Dustin remembered learning it as a way to talk with Mike, Lucas, and Will in class without getting caught. Of course, Mr. Clark had figured it out in the end, and they had to stop, but Dustin could still recognize the shorts and longs, dashes and dots. He unzipped his backpack and grabbed a pencil and a loose peice of paper.

On.

On, off...

Dustin scribbled down each letter as he deciphered it, and slowly but steadily, a single sentence arranged itself on the peice of paper. Dustin's breath hitched in his throat.

I'LL BE WATCHING YOU

But the flickering didn't stop, it only got faster, repeating the same thing over and over again.

I'll be watching you I'll be watching you I'll be watching you I'll be watching you I'll be watching you I'll be -

The light exploded in a firework of sparks and Dustin turned away, shielding his eyes. 

But when he turned back, the bike lay where he'd left it, completely undamaged, like nothing had ever happened. But there was something, something Dustin hadn't noticed before.

A clown stood in the middle of the street directly in front of his house, illuminated by a single streetlight. It looked like any other circus clown, with frizzy orange hair, a bloody smile painted on its stark white face. Clutched in its gloved hand, was a single red balloon. It remined Dustin of tha figurine from D&D, the Eater of Children, he recalled. But there was something ominous about it, something that sent shivers down Dustin's spine. It waved at him, beckoning him outside.

 _Come closer,_ it whispered, its yellow eyes shining brightly, only Dustin could _hear_ it, as if it was standing right next to him.  _Come closer._  It smiled at him, and Dustin wanted to look away, but he couldn't. His eyes were glued to it, to the balloon, red as blood.  _Come closer, it said. Don't you want a balloon, Dusty? Don't you want a balloon?_ Dustin felt like his head was underwater. _Did...did_ he want a balloon? Of course he did. He reached for the door handle. 

 _Yes,_ it hissed. _C_ _ome closer come closer come closer come -_

"Dusty, are you ready for bed?" his mom asked from the living room couch, startling Dustin out of his trance. He managed to tear his eyes away from the clown. "Uh, yeah, be right there, Ma!"

When Dustin turned back to the window, the street was empty, but somehow, _somehow_ he knew the clown was waiting - waiting in the darkness, watching his every move. It was almost as if he could feel it, two bright yellow irises shining in the dark.


	7. Will

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hopper is hiding something, and Will intends to find out what.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I suck at updating ! I'm so sorry ! Like I'm just gonna post this in two parts cos ya girl feels hecka bad for not updating for like four weeks oof,,,,(sorry sorry sorry!) 
> 
> (Also no spoilers but next part of this will prolly have some Richie and Will becoming best buds so yes)
> 
> But yee
> 
> Stay tuned for part two kiddos :)))

 

Will Byers was unsure of many things.

He wasn't sure if he'd ever get over the feelings of jealousy and guilt that settled in the pit of his stomach like stones whenever Mike talked about Eleven with that soft, sorrowful look in his eyes, wasn't sure if he'd ever again, get through the night without waking up screaming.

But he was sure about one thing.

And it was that Cheif Hopper was hiding something. Something big.

And...maybe Will thought that it had something to do with that mysterious Eggo-loving girl who'd saved him last fall.

He didn't have much to go off of, just things he'd noticed that seemed a little...weird. Hopper walking out of the GoodWill, Will watching him from the window of the comic book store across the street as he shoved a pair of overalls - way to small to be for himself - into his truck, Hopper at the grocery store, cart full of boring adult things (coffee, razor blades, shampoo, ect), all except for the bright yellow Eggos box that stood out as Will walked past.

Will had always been particularly good at noticing things, being the quietest of the party. He had never really been a take action kind of guy, he usually left that stuff to Dustin and Mike, who both had a flare for the dramatics (Mike would never admit it, but Will knew he was the type of guy in all those cheesy chick flicks, the one standing outside the girl's window, holding a boom box high above his head in an act of love, where as Will was the extra who wasn't even in the movie, he just kinda stood around in the background, wondering what it was like to be that brave), although there was something kind of cool about being the quiet kid, noticing, listening, like some kind of super spy. Only, he wasn't the super spy anymore, he was Zombie Boy, and eyes followed him wherever he went. He was just a super freak now.

 "Will, don't play with your food," his mother's voice broke him out of his thoughts. He realized his plate was a train wreck, all smashed peas and cut up chicken smeared around the surface. Will looked up at the other three occupants of the dining table, his mother, Johnathan, and the head of Hawkins PD himself. Hopper caught his eye and gave him an awkward closed mouth smile. Will averted his eyes carefully. 

It was rare that the Byers family ever bothered to eat dinner at the dining table, but their short meals that usually took place in front of the television right before his mother's night shift at the general store had come to a stop once Hopper had started coming over. He'd drive Joyce over to the store on his way home after dinner. It was kind of weird, the Chief of Police and his mother, not that they were _going together_ or anything. It was something more than that, a word he'd learned in English class. What was it? Unrequited, Will's mind supplied. Unrequited love, one-sided love. But it was different with his mother and Hopper, Will realized. It was like they _both_ thought their love was unrequited, so they didn't do anything about it, he could see it in they way they looked at each other when they thought nobody was watching, stars and sadness in their eyes. It was totally gross...but also kind of sweet...and frustrating to watch. But Will understood it, because he was pretty sure he had that same pleasantly dazed look on his face whenever he looked at Mike. And he knew it was wrong, and disgusting, and he'd probably end up rotting in hell because of the way he was, but the thing was, it didn't feel disgusting -not in the moment, at least- the warmth that blossomed in his chest whenever Mike laughed at something he'd said, freckled cheeks pink with amusement. And sometimes, if Will said something really funny, he'd let out this god-awful snort, and it was probably the cutest thing in the world. But then, Will would find himself staring just a beat too long, and that's when the disgust rolled in, waves of nausea and self-hatred consuming him. It wasn't that he was disgusted with himself because he was queer, though. He'd kind of come to terms with it being part of who he was, some people have colored eyes, Will liked boys, it was a fact of life (not that he would ever tell anybody. Listening to people like Troy call him 'cocksucker' and 'fairy' told him enough about how people would react if he came out). No, Will hated himself because of who he was queer for, aka, his bestfriend, aka his best friend who was obviously interested in girls. It just felt wrong, to like someone he knew would never feel the same (unrequited unrequited unrequited), pervy even, like spying on a girl changing from her bedroom window with a telescope or something.

"Will?"

He looked up. His mom, Jonathan, and Hopper had stopped eating. They were looking at him, worried expressions on their faces. Will remembered the first time he had a seizer at school, his vision had been flickering in and out, real world upsidedown real world upsidedown. He'd been choking on nothing, gasping for breath, and shaking so hard he was pretty sure it was classified under "convulsing".  He remembered Mike's face, the same look his mom and everybody was giving him now. He _hated_ that look, like they were scared that he'd break into tiny little pieces right before their eyes. Zombie Boy Byers is at it again, it seemed to say to him.

"You okay, buddy?" Jonathan asked him.  

Will nodded, managing a smile. "Yeah, I'm just not very hungry." And it was true. He _was_ okay. Not everything was a side effect of the Upsidedown, you know? Not that anybody but Will seemed to get that. He couldn't even get a head cold anymore without everybody freaking out. "Dustin brought over a ton of snacks for the campaign so I've kind of been eating all day." That seemed to convince Jonathan and Hopper, but his mom frowned, that little line in the middle of her eyebrows deepening. She always looked like that when she was staring at Will, like she was trying to project herself into his mind, in fact Will felt personally responsible for that line. "Are you sure you don't want something else? There's a Hungry Man in the freezer." 

Hungry Man TV dinners where the main course of every Byers meal. The little plastic plate with frozen chicken, peas, and a brownie that they would heat up in the microwave oven. "I'm not hungry," Will said again.

The line deepened. "Come here. I need to check and see if you're running a fever."

Will's cheeks burned. She treated him like he was a baby. "Mom -"

"Joyce, come on, the kid's just not hungry," Hopper tried to reassure her.

"Dr. Owens said loss of appetite is a sign of PTSD -"

 _"Mom!"_ Will's voice came out louder than he expected, he dropped his fork onto his plate with a clatter. The three of them were looking at him with different expressions now, eyes wide and mouths open, kind of like how Mike and his cousin Richie had been looking at each other earlier. It reminded Will of Tom and Jerry, how the characters' eyes popped right out of their heads when they were shocked.  "Not everything is a sign of PTSD, okay?! Not everything is a seizer, or a vision! I'm already a freak at school, the least you can do is leave me alone when I'm at home!" he yelled. _Yelled._ Will had never, in his life, raised his voice at his mother - or anyone for that matter. And he almost immediately felt bad about it. She was just trying to make sure he was okay. It wasn't like there was a handbook on Parents' Guide to Dealing With Your Child After Exposure to An Alternate Dimension. Will was ready to accept whatever punishment he was about to ecieve and apologize.

But the punishment never came.

His mom, brother, and Hopper stared at him a stunned silence. Nobody made a move to scold him, Hopper didn't yell at him, Jonathan didn't tell him he was being a dick, his mom didn't tell him to go to his room. They just...sat there, and it made Will angry all over again. He should be _in trouble_ right now. Did they all think he was so helpless that he couldn't even get scolded without having some kind of breakdown?

He got up out of his chair and stormed to his room, hot angry tears escaping the corners of his eyes. Will slammed the door and collapsed into his bed, suddenly exhauseted. He could hear Jonathan in the dining room, trying to convince his mom that they would be fine while she was at work.

"Mom. He's practically a teenager, and teenagers do this all the time. Don't you remember me when I was fourteen?" Will did. Jonathan yelling at their father, cutting school, stealing their mom's cigarettes, blasting the Sex Pistols just to get a rise out of them. Will had thought it was the coolest thing he'd ever seen. 

"I know, but - "

"He just needs to be alone for a while, Mom."

"Okay, Jonathan make sure you watch him."

"Mom, what is he going to do? Run away? We'll be fine." He said it like a joke, like it was the craziest thing in the world for little Will Byers to run away. Because they knew he wouldn't, and Will knew he wouldn't, but that only seemed to fuel his motivation. Will glanced at the window over to his left, the two-paneled kind, with latch in the middle. There was a sheet tacked over it, because Will's dad had always said blinds were a waste of money. Will gkared at the window, Jonathan's voice echoing in his head.  _What is he gonna do? Run away?_

Before everything with the Demogorgon, Lucas would always come up with these stupid dares for the party, you know - eat a whole pack of Mentos and drink a liter of Cola, ding dong ditch Troy's house, that kind of stuff. "What are you, a pussy?" He'd always say, a grin on his face if one of them backed out. It was something about the way he said it that always made them cave in, Mike rolling his eyes and Dustin groaning. He didn't say it anymore though, probably for the same reason as everybody else (leave Will alone. He's been through _so_ much), but Will heard his voice now, saw the smirk on his face.

_What are you, a pussy?_

Will stood up.

He walked towards the window and moved the sheet aside, heart hammering in his chest. The night he'd been taken flashed before his eyes, almost like he was reliving it, the cold foreign feel of the rifle in his hands, his dog barking, the light flickering...on..off...on...offonoffonoff...and finally total darkness. Will clenched his fists to stop himself from shaking. _This is what they all want,_ he thought. _They want me to feel helpless, like a baby._

 _Click_. The window swung open silently.

(Nothing is going to get me nothing is going to get me) Will stumbled out of the open window, his sneakers making little dust tornadoes as the came into contact with the hard packed dirt.

 _Oh, God_ , he thought. _What do I do now?_ In the movies, the guy usually ran wild around town, wreaking havoc and having a good time, but Will didn't really feel like wreaking havoc. In a moment of panic, he thought maybe he should just climb back through is window and read a book or something, and maybe he'd let himself think about Mike's freckled cheekbones for a minute or two, but the sound of the front door opening cause Will to push the window shut and scramble around the side of the house.

"I really should check on him before we go..." his mother was saying. Will's breath stilled. _Please, please just go._

"Joyce, let the kid sulk for God's sake," came Hopper's reply. "You heard him, he just wants to be left alone for a while."

A sigh, and then - "Come on. You're gonna be late for work." 

Will let out a sigh of relief as Hopper's truck started up and drove away, with his mom in it. He watched the truck until it turned the corner, headlights briefly blinding him in the darkness. Suddenly, Will knew what he was going to do.

But first, he needed his bike. 

 


	8. Willyum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Um,,I've been gone a looong time so lemme just give y'all a "previously on Its Strange"...Okay so,,our fave boiis Richie and Eddie, a year after their traumatic experience with homeboy Pennywise, end up traveling to a very familiar place in Indiana. Meanwhile,,our Hawkins boiis seem to be having their own run ins with a familiar, dark presence...And most recently, Will is having trouble with the sheltered way his mom and everybody is treating him, all while trying to uncover Hopper's suspected secret. Maybe he'll find help in a certain Trashmouth...

Will hadn't been in the back shed since it happened.

His blood seemed to run cold whenever he caught a glimpse of it through the window in the living room, the rotting, slanting wood hiding in the shadows of his backyard seemed to be watching him, calling to him. He thought he was scared of it at first, scared the Demogorgon was still in there, hiding in his dad's old beer fridge waiting to pop out or something, but after a while, he realized he wasn't scared of the shed.

He was scared of the ghost inside it.

Not a real ghost that moans in the night and wears a white sheet on its head, but the ghost of Will, who he used to be. Less scared, more innocent, the Will who wanted to grow up and be a professional artist, the Will who thought maybe one day he would have a chance with Mike. That Will had died the second the Demogorgon turned the light off. Sometimes, he thought if he looked at the shed long enough, he would see his own face peering back at him through the dusty window, the old Will, trying to get out.

He stood before the shed now, hand poised above the rusty handle. Will didn't want to go inside and face the memories, didn't want to face his ghost, but his bike was in there, _had_ been there since last winter, and he needed it if he was going to go through with his plan.

He turned the handle.

The wooden door opened with a quiet whine, revealing the dark cluttered room behind it. It looked the same, nothing had moved or changed since he'd last seen it. It almost felt spooky, like the whole place was frozen in time. It reminded him of Poltergeist, how everything seemed so calm right before the big jump scare that had the whole theater gasping in surprise, but this time, Will was prepared. His grip tightened around the rock in his hand, one he'd found somewhere around the side of his house. It was pretty big, a little bigger than his palm, and jagged too. Just in case. He stepped in, the floor creaking under his weight. Will stood up on his tiptoes to pull the string on the light to his left. It clicked on, bathing the room in dim orange glow. He took a deep breath, taking in the little room, the smell of dust and rusted metal, the quickening of his pulse as his eyes darted this way and that. Then he got to work, moving things aside - a rusted microwave, Jonathan's old skateboard - to look for his bike. He eventually found it propped up against the back wall like it had been waiting for him.

Hands gripped firmly around the handles, he wheeled the yellow bicycle out of the shack, pulling the light bulb string on his way out. Will paused just outside the shed, staring into the darkness for a second, thinking maybe if he looked hard enough he'd see a pair of innocent green eyes identical to his own shining in the dark. He finally turned away, setting the rock down just outside the door, like a gravestone. _Here lies the old me_. "So long, Will," he said before shutting the door behind him.

 

* * *

 

 

The Dollar General store his mom worked at glowed in the darkness of the night, the florescent lights illuminating the parking lot where Hopper's pickup truck was parked. Will crouched in the ally between the store and the RadioShack next to it, still panting from the ride over. He watched the beige pick-up truck, mind racing. He hadn't really thought much about what he would do after he followed his mom and Hopper to the store. What now? Follow Hopper home? Sneak into his trailer after he falls asleep and find Eleven hidden in a cupboard somewhere?

Once again he thought about turning back. It wasn't too late to forget about this whole thing and go home. But he kept seeing Mike's face in his he head, that pained look that rested on his features when he thought nobody was paying attention. He had one too - a ghost, only he didn't seem all the way dead. Sometimes the old Mike came out, and he laughed and joked and smiled with his squishy freckled cheeks. But then he would disappear behind that sad look. Sometimes, Will almost hated Eleven, for making Mike care about her and then vanishing into thin air, for making Mike halfway dead. But he knew it wasn't her fault, it was nobody's fault. Dustin told Will it was because Mike broke a promise. Mike had told Eleven that everything would be fine, that she would be safe, but that was right before she disappeared. Mike felt guilty for something that was way out of his hands, but then again, that sounded _exactly_ like something Mike would do. He always had to be the hero, and Will wasn't sure if he loved it or hated it.

The little bell on the door jingled. Hopper walked out of the Dollar General and tucked himself into his truck. Will licked his lips in anticipation, mind made up. If there was even a chance that Hopper knew where El was, that Mike would be happy again, then Will was going to do whatever it took.

He watched the truck start up and back out of the parking lot with determination. Will took a deep breath, and then he kicked off of the ground, pedaling slowly, feeling very much like 007. A secret agent on a mission, invisible to the naked eye, just like old times. _I couldn't save myself, but I can save Mike._ He followed the truck down the empty main street, trying his best to stay just far enough behind to stay out of sight. Past the old Hawk Theater, where Will could see an employee on a ladder switching the bulky black letters around to say **"Rocky Horror Picture Show | 12:00"** , and past the darkened Lost Sock Laundromat (Will breathed in the smell of clean laundry that remained from the day's washes as he rode past). He finally followed Hopper to the outskirts of town, where the man parked his truck just a little ways away from the big green **'YOU ARE NOW LEAVING HAWKINS'** sign. Will quickly veered left and hid behind a tree as he watched Hopper park the car and get out. The police officer pulled a grocery bag and a rifle out of the bed of his truck. Will's breath hitched at the sight of the gun. He backed up, and to his dismay, a twig crunched under his sneaker. It might as well have been a bazooka going off with the way Hopper's head snapped in Will's direction, alert. He froze, sweat perspiring under his bangs. The highway stretched horizontally in between them, Hopper on one side, Will and his bike on the other. It almost felt like a standoff, Will half expected a tumbleweed to blow by. There was enough distance between them to reassure the boy that there was no way Hopper could see him.

But still...

Will could've sworn Hopper's gaze landed on him, glinting in the pale moonlight, but he soon realized the police officer had turned his attention on trying to pull his lighter out of the pocket of his uniform. Will exhaled quietly as he watched Hopper light a cigarette, the flame briefly illuminating his face in the darkness of the night. He took a long drag, almost sighing the smoke up towards the moon. He stood there for a minute, almost peaceful, then with a final puff of smoke, he snuffed out his cigarette on the sole of his boot and headed into the woods.

 _This is as far as I go_ , Will thought. _At least...at least for right now_. He didn't trust the woods, not at night at least. It had always seemed like nighttime there, in...in the Upsidedown. Will remembered the cold, the gloom, the poison in the air...It had been...

 _A nightmare_.

Will shivered. He would come back, he decided. Tomorrow maybe, when it was daytime. But now, he needed to get home. He knew Johnathan would come to check on him sooner or later, despite what he had told their mom. Will hopped on his bike a rode back into town. He pedaled absentmindedly, not really needing to pay much attention to where was was going, he knew the town like the back of his hand, afterall. A plan slowly but surely began to form in his head as he rode. His mother had an extra long shift every Tuesday, from morning to night. He was allowed to go out while she was gone, so long as he called her to check in at the start of every hour...

His train of thought halted to a stop when he heard the music.

Carnival music, he thought, only it was all static-y, almost as if he was hearing it through loudspeakers, like the morning announcements at school.

Will looked up, slowing down on his bike. He realized he'd turned on to Maple Street without even realizing it; the houses he passed by every day looked different in the dark. They loomed over him, the windows seemingly watching him, the doors snarling like mouths. The carnival music only got faster, or was that just Will's imagination? It seemed to be going along with the blood roaring in his ears, the thumping of his heartbeat.

Then the world turned upside down.

It was flickering like a faulty light bulb, real world, Upsidedown. Reality, nightmare. Will clenched the handles of his bike. _It's not real_ , he tried to tell himself. _It's not real._

But he knew it was. Too real, in fact. And he could feel someone-something behind him. Not the Demogorgan, but something older, something _darker._ And it was getting closer. He couldn't move, Jesus, he couldn't even breath. It was like he could...could feel the evil, seeping in his veins, in his head. The world was flickering and the music was loud and he could _feel_ it behind him-

A hand grasped his shoulder.

"Wilma? That you, man?"

Will exhaled. Suddenly, the world was fine again. The Upsidedown was gone, the music faded away into nothingness, and Will could move again. He slowly turned around.

There was nobody behind him, only-

"Well gee-fucking-wiz Wilma! I didn't exactly take you as a night owl," Mike- wait no, _Richie Tozier_ called out. 

He was sitting on the curb in front of Mike's lawn, thick glasses glinting under the dim light of a street lamp. He had his Walkman strapped the the belt of his cut-off jeans, a headphone set buried somewhere in the depths of his curly hair, and tucked naturally in between his index and middle fingers, was a lit cigarette. Will could see the slight rectangular bulge from the pack of Winstons rolled into the folds of his T-shirt sleeve. _If he's sitting there, then who grabbed your shoulder?_ a tiny voice inside him whispered. Will ignored it.

"What are ye' doin' out at this time of night, ol' chap?" the Richie asked in what was possibly meant to be a pirate (Australian?) voice, although Will wasn't sure. He wheeled his bike over to the boy. "I could ask you the same question," he said.

"Sleeping isn't really somethin' that comes easy to me," Richie replied, stretching back and folding his arms behind his head. Will settled down next to him, planting himself on the curb. "I know the feeling." _More than you know._

"Yeah, I figured I'd just lay out here and listen to music until I got tired," Richie held up his Walkman, in the dim street light, Will could just see the strip of tape across the middle with the name 'Beverly' printed across it in loopy hand writing. Will wondered if she was Richie's girlfriend. To be honest, he couldn't really imagine anybody, much less a _girl_ being able to put up with his loud mouth. Richie took a long drag of his cigarette and blew it into the night sky, looking very much like the typical rebel in some cheesy romance film.

"Those things'll kill you, you know," Will said. It's what he always told his mom, not that she ever listened.

Richie looked at him and laughed. Not the obnoxious donkey laugh Will had heard in the basement hours before, but a light chuckle. It sent a pleasant shiver down his spine. Inner-Will rolled his eyes. _Another Mike for you to slobber over._ Will ignored it.

"Yep, that's what Eds always tells me."

Will thought about the small, irritated looking boy from the basement. He and Richie seemed like complete polar opposites, yet the way Richie said his name so softly was...interesting.

"Eds," Will said, interrupting his own train of thought. "How long have you guys known each other?"

"Well shit, how long has it been?" Richie asked himself, taking a thoughtful drag. "Well, probably since, forever I guess. Our love story is that of an epic one," he said dramatically.

Will could tell he was joking but...something felt different about the way Richie was talking. Familiar, almost...

"What about you and Mike?"

Will startled "Huh? Oh- Me and Mike uh...We've been friends since kindergarten, actually." He could still remember the day they met, Mike's face smiling down at him from where he sat on the swing set, the dark green turtle neck sweater he wore. _Hi, I'm Michael, but you can call me Mike. Wanna be my friend?_

"So what's your damage, Wilbur?"

Will startled, looking towards the boy next to him. Richie was looking at him expectantly, headphones resting around his neck. Will could hear the music blaring from the speakers, Talking Heads, he noted. Nice. "M-my damage?" Will asked.

"I mean, unless riding around on your bike in the middle of the night is just one of your hobbies," the boy continued.

Will laughed. "No, its not."

"So then what's up, Doc?" Richie made an attempt to sound like Bugs Bunny. God, how could he look so much like Mike, yet be so totally, entirely different?

Will chuckled drily. "How much time you got?"

Richie snuffed out his cigarette and hopped up from the curb. "Ladies and gentlemen, fear not, the Amazing Richie will be here _allll_ night!" he bowed for Will.

Will bit his lip, thinking it over. He couldn't tell Richie the whole story, he knew that. It might put him, or Mike...or someone else in danger. You never know who's listening, Lucas always said. And with Hawkins Lab still up and running, it was true.

"Well...I'm kind of...worried about Mike'" he starts.

"Yeah, what for?" Richie turned towards him, glasses glinting under the street light. God Save the Queen by Sex Pistols played from Richie's headphones now. It blared into the night, filling the silence.

Will looked around. Why did he feel like he was being watched all of a sudden? Panic was starting to creep into his head.

"I...I can't tell you right now," he lowered his voice to a whisper. "Meet me tomorrow at this spot. 7 o'clock." He started to get up. It was late, he needed to go home. He had to get out of this street, out of the open.

"Jesus, Willster, who lit a fire under _your_ ass?" Richie asked, but Will wasn't listening. He kicked up the stand on his bike and hopped on. "I'll tell you tomorrow," he said. "Remember," he looked Richie in the eyes. " _7 o'clock_."

Then he pedaled off, not looking back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Its been a while,, but i truly hope y'all are still on with this fic lol ! and if u want, bother me on [my tumblr](http://nasally-voice.tumblr.com/) !!!


	9. Eds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie gets ditched TWICE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a heads up, I'll be naming the chapters after whichever pov they're written in from now on !!

 

Eating with the Wheelers was like eating with a group of people who had just met each other.

Quiet.

Very quiet.

After Mrs. Wheeler had made an attempt to ask Richie's cousin about his day (the boy had just shrugged, stabbing a few stray peas with his fork), _that_ was the end of that. No radio, no talking, just the scraping of forks on plates and the sound of Richie having a fucking stroke next to him.

Because Eddie was fine with quiet, (dinner with his mom was pretty similar), Richie, on the other hand, was not. He would get all weird and fidgety and start rambling about the first thing that popped into his head. It happened all the time when they had study hall together on Tuesdays in the library. Whenever things got a little too quiet, he'd have Richie in his ear, like a nat.  _("Hey, Eds, do you think horses get songs stuck in their heads? What kind of music do you think they even like? Well, I mean, probably country because, you know, they're horses bu-")_

It was off to a bad start when he had called Mike's dad 'Ted-Meister', and only seemed to get worse when he'd laughed so hard (at his own joke) that milk shot out of his nose, not to mention the fact that he went ahead asked Mike if his sister Nancy (aka _his_ cousin) was hot (she was at a sleepover apparently, and Mike looked like he was ready to launch his plate right into Richie's face). Its was safe to say Eddie was relieved when Richie's aunt had finally showed them to the basement. After flipping a coin to see who got the pullout bed and who got the sleeping bag (Eddie had called tails, securing himself the couch for that night), he'd tuned out Richie's chattering and eventually fell into a peaceful sleep.

_Sike._

That night, Eddie's dreams were stained blood red. He couldn't make sense of much of them. It was all one big blur, like he was watching his dreams through the window of a train going a thousand miles an hour. He managed to make out some of it, horrible images that made his insides squirm; the sewers, Georgie's bright yellow raincoat soaked in blood, Richie, eyes widened in fear, his hands on the sides of Eddie's face, holding him in place. _Look at me. Eddie, look at me!_ His voice sounded muffled in Eddie's ears. He felt like laughing. _Why so serious, Trashmouth?_ he wanted to ask, but he couldn't seem to form the words, couldn't seem to tear his fucking eyes away from Richie's.

_Look at me!_

Eddie woke up in a blind panic, pulse stuttering and mind racing. He sat up quickly, ignoring the little white spots that danced in his vision. Waking up from nightmares was like hitting the surface after holding his breath underwater for too long. He knew he was fine...but he couldn't catch his breath, _couldn't_ stop thinking about Richie's wide eyes, couldn't stop shaking _holy shit_. Eddie threw himself back onto the couch cushions, forcing himself to focus on the rafters above. He counted each slab of wood until he could feel himself relax, the remnants of the nightmare fading away into the back of his mind. He was getting better at controlling the false asthma attacks, counting things seemed to help a lot for some reason. Eddie let his gaze fall from the basement ceiling to his arm, the bulky white cast illuminated by the sunlight shining through the little basement window. He traced the slightly smudged writing--his friend's names, then the big black letters that seemed to glare at Eddie in the harsh morning light.

LOSER.

Or maybe it said lover, Eddie always thought it depended on his mood. Sometimes, he could barley see the V he'd colored on in permanent marker, all he saw was _loser, loser, loser,_ seared into his arm, like a brand on a cow's hide. He saw his mom in her living room armchair ( _Aren't you forgetting something, Eddie-bear?_ ), saw that girl Greta from the drugstore, the smell of bubblegum and Sharpie filling his nose. But then there were other times, when the bright red V stood out like Bev's hair. _Lover_. Weird.

He just wished his mom would let him take the ugly thing off already. It had been a _year._ His arm wasn't broken anymore, he could feel it, itching to be free.

Eddie rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and strapped on his watch.

 _6: 46,_ it read.

"Ha," Eddie said out loud, his voice sounding odd in the silence of the basement. Somewhere out there, Sonia Kaspbrak was wondering if her _Eddie-bear_ had gotten up at 6 am sharp to take his morning vitamins. He hadn't even _packed_ his vitamins. The thought made something spark in Eddie's chest- excitement. He was in an entirely new place, these people knew _nothing_ about him. They didn't look at him and see Sonya Kaspbrak's son, the kid who singlehandedly kept the Main street drugstore from bankruptcy, didn't see that freak who always had to sit on the bleachers while everyone else played dodgeball because his fucking mommy had stormed 6th period gym class, demanding her little boy be excused. He was...a stranger, and he kind of liked it like that. 

Eddie sat up on the futon and stretched, one limb at a time, his back a bit stiff from the couch cushions. He'd fallen asleep in his clothes on accident, his overalls had come undone while he slept. His arm felt weird, a dull pain throbbing up and down his forearm.

 _M_ _y arm always aches after I have a dream like that_.

It wasn't until Eddie was changed, teeth brushed, hair combed and laces tied neatly, that he realized Richie was gone. His abandoned sleeping bag lay in disarray on the floor next to the couch.

"Breakfast!" He heard Mrs. Wheeler call faintly from upstairs. Eddie's stomach grumbled in response. He strapped on his fanny pack and marched up the basement steps.

Breakfast seemed to be a much less awkward thing for the Wheelers. Mike, Richie's look alike, and his little sister Holly sat at the table, eating eggs and bacon off of bright blue china as Mrs. Wheeler hummed cheerily from the stove. The boy looked up from his plate and gave Eddie an awkward, mouthful smile. Not really an I'm-Happy-To-See-You Smile, more of an At-Least-you're-not-Richie Smile, which Eddie respected. The radio was on, Careless Whisper by that Wham guy Ben liked so much drifting through speakers quietly. There was an orange juice soaked rag on the table, suggesting that somebody's mess had just been cleaned up.

A mess. Richie had been here.

"Oh! Good morning Eddie," Mrs. Wheeler chirped, once she spotted him standing awkwardly in the kitchen doorway. She ushered him to the table and set a plate in front of him. The smell of scrambled eggs and bacon and toast wafted into Eddie's nose. His stomach growled again. "Help yourself, dear," she smiled at him. "Richard is upstairs washing up. He spilled orange juice all over himself."

"Sounds like him," Eddie mumbled.

"Oh, and Eddie, your mother called me last night to tell me she sent your prescription to our drug store. It's stocked and ready if you need it."

Eddie pursed his lips. So much for nobody knowing anything about him. He knew what prescription she was talking about. After everything, his mother had canceled all the pills and medicines for his made up sickness, all except one. The thought of the shiny new inhaler sitting in a little bin behind the Hawkins's drug store counter marked 'Edward Kaspbrak' made his stomach twist into a knot. He hated it. "Gee, thanks Mrs. Wheeler."

She smiled kindly at him.

"Mike, isn't it fun, how much Richie and you look alike?" She suddenly asked. "Imagine all the shenanigans you two could get into," she said this as she set down a glass of milk next to Eddie's plate.

"He looks more like Simon the freaking chipmunk than he does me," Mike muttered in between bites of scrambled eggs, rolling his eyes. Eddie snickered.

"Michael!" Mrs. Wheeler said. "Don't be rude!"

She finished soaking up the orange juice and kissed Mike on the forehead, much to his annoyance. "Mom!"

"I'm taking Holly to the park before I go grocery shopping," Mrs. Wheeler picked up her daughter as she spoke. "There's seconds on the stove if you boys want any. Oh, and Mike, don't forget to show you're cousin and his friend around town today before you start in on that board game." Mike rolled his eyes at that. 

"Sorry," he said sheepishly once she'd gone, "For what I said about Richie, I mean. I know I just met him yesterday and first impressions are usually wrong but-" 

Eddie scoffed. "Oh no, your first impression of Richie was spot on. And it only goes downhill from here. Just wait 'til you hear the nicknames he'll give you."

"Oh yeah?" Mike asked, smirking. "Like Spaghetti Man?" Eddie wrinkled his nose at the name Richie had used the night before in front of 4 out 5 members of the Wheeler family. "I don't think it gets much worse the Spaghetti Man," Mike was joking with him, he could see it.

"Yeah?" Eddie asked, grinning. "We'll see _Cuzy-Wuzy."_ Mike laughed. It was a nice laugh, Eddie decided. Nothing like Richie's in the slightest. The other boy's smile suddenly faded. "Hey...I was wondering if I could ask you som-"

"Good morning, Eddie-bear," Richie came up behind him and ruffled his hair before sitting down at the table. His own hair was drenched, little droplets of water sliding down wet curls, soaking the neck and shoulders of the _Derry Jewish Boys of Excellence '82_ T-shirt that Stan had given him one night after he'd tried to set off a firecracker in the empty lot next to the Uris's and caught part of his shirt on fire. It was safe to say Stan regretted everything after Richie wore the shirt for a fucking week straight and went around town calling himself an "honorary Jew".

"Don't call me that," Eddie greeted absentmindedly, taking a satisfying bite of buttery scrambled eggs. If only his mother could make more than cold, lumpy oatmeal for breakfast.

"Oh, and top of the morning to you, Mike and Ike," Richie said. "I was hoping you were just having a bad hair day when I met ya yesterday, but I guess it always looks like you're wearing a hardhat, huh?"

Mike's cheeks turned red. "And I was hoping that shower would wipe some of the grime away but I guess your face always looks that dirty, _huh?"_ he retorted, a smirk on his face. Richie sleazy grin fell at that. Eddie frowned. Richie Tozier always appreciated a snappy comeback, he pretty much welcomed it, but he didn't seem to like Mike's very much. He squinted at him from across the table. "Bold sentence coming from someone who's got a bunch of toys in little glass cases sitting on his bedroom shelves." 

"They're _figurines-_ hey, stay out of my room!" 

Richie shrugged "I needed a towel."

"You used my _towel?"_

"Yeah, and I rubbed my dick all over it too! How do ya like _them_ apples?" Richie stood up, flipping Mike the bird. 

"Beep, beep, Richie!" Eddie grabbed his best friend's arm and yanked him back into his seat, rolling his eyes. The anger slipped from Mike's face at Eddie's words. He opened his mouth, when a girl breezed into the kitchen.

"Hey, loser, I need to borrow your Walkman," she said, flicking the back of Richie's head and heading over to the cupboard to get a plate.

"Darlin' you can borrow anything you want from me," Richie slurred, winking. Eddie pinched the bridge of his nose. _Oh. God._ There were only so many Richie fires he could put out per day.

She nearly dropped her plate, whipping around. "You're not my brother." It wasn't really a statement, more like an accusation, like she'd just caught him red-handed with Mike's face.

"I take it you're Nancy. Richie's the name, wooing the ladies is my game." Richie stood up. And then he bowed. He actually _bowed._ Nancy looked positively horrified, not that Eddie could blame her in that moment.

"Dude, what the hell! That's my sister," Mike said, visibly disgusted. "And that's your cousin! Ughh, you're so _weird."_

"He's joking," Eddie said quickly, elbowing Richie in the stomach. "He knows that making a pass at people who are related to him is _creepy as_ fu...," he trailed off, glancing down. "Richie."

His friend pushed his glasses up his nose innocently. "What's the haps, Edster?"

Eddie blinked. And then blinked again. "Are those...my shorts?"

"Oh, heh, yeah," Richie glanced down at his legs. He was wearing Eddie's shorts, the little red ones with the rainbows on them. It wasn't like they didn't fit him, nothing _bulged_ out, thank God. They were _just...really_ short.

Eddie was suddenly having trouble breathing. _"W...why?"_

Eddie wasn't sure why he cared so much, they'd practically spent all last summer swimming at the quarry in nothing but their tighty whities- not to mention they'd all shared clothes many times before- a pair of too shorts shorts should've been nothing. It just felt different now. A year had passed. Richie had...grown. The baby fat had melted off of him, soft curves and squishy cheeks gone, leaving angles, sharp edges in their place. It wasn't like he was much taller than Eddie, either- maybe a head, just tall enough to tease him about. There was no hair on his chest or his armpits yet (as much as he liked to brag about the single curly hair growing in). He wasn't manly, still an awkward 14 year old kid, but he was...different. Eddie found himself noticing things, like those constellations of freckles on his thighs, the dip of his collarbone, the soft pink of his mouth? It made him uncomfortable think about them, itchy and sweaty. 

_Edieeee, you need those pills for your sickness!_

He stiffened at the sound of his mother's voice echoing in his head. He looked down at his hands, his legs. No boils, no wounds, but he could feel it, a tight little ball _of...something_ building in his chest.

The sickness.

It didn't feel bad, like Cancer, but it scared him, a lot. It...it wasn't supposed to be there, he knew it.

"Well I had orange juice all over me and I needed something real quick. Your duffle bag was closest to the door so..." Richie spun around, like he was in some kind of fashion show for boys wearing ridiculously tiny shorts. "Like em? I mean, they're a bit small but-"

"A _bit?"_ Mike sputtered. He laughed out loud. "Oh God, a bit is an understatement!"

"Yeah, whatever, Dungeons and Douchebags, you're just jealous that I got an ass that won't quit. And that's a direct quote, _straight_ from the horse's mouth, and by horse, I mean Eddie's mom." 

"I don't know what _you're_ laughing about, Mike," Nancy said, sitting down next to Eddie with her plate. "I mean, he looks _just_ like you. People are gonna see him around town today and think 'Is that Mike Wheeler wearing those tiny shorts?'" She seemed to cherish at the thought. 

"Oh, God," Mike groaned. "We are _not_ leaving the house today." 

"On the contrary, Michael," Richie said in his British Statesman Voice, sticking a finger in the air. He snatched the last piece of toast off of Eddie's plate and pinched his cheek, (Fuck you, Richie!" He complained, jerking away). "I've got an important, er, British thing to do- what do British people even do?" He added in his regular voice. "Gotta work on that voice I guess." He took a bite of toast. "Anways! Sir Spaghetti, fair lady," he bowed to Eddie, and then to Nancy for the second time in the last 5 minutes. He glanced at Mike, _"Peasant."_ And then he was gone. 

Eddie stood up from his chair. "Richie, where the hell are you- " 

The front door slammed shut. 

Eddie sighed. "-going..?"

"Where the hell is he so eager to do in Hawkins?" Mike asked, scoffing. 

"He's gonna get himself lost, going out alone like that," Eddie sighed. "Or stuck in a tree. That happens a lot." The firemen back in Derry had an ongoing bet - just how many trees would they have to rescue Richie Tozier from before the idiot learned his lesson. The current number was 12. 

"Uh...I don t think he's alone," Nancy said rather awkwardly, and Eddie followed her gaze to the window above the sink, it's lacy white curtains cracked just wide enough for him to catch a glimpse of the small boy that stood waiting just in front of the Wheeler's lawn. 

"Will?" Mike said, frowning. "What's he doing here so early?" 

Eddie watched -in what felt like slow motion-  his _best friend_  jog over to Will. He ruffled the boy's hair affectionately, and Eddie frowned, something ugly boiling in the pit of his stomach. Will said something inaudible, and Richie nodded. Then they both got on Will's bike and road away. Just like that.

Eddie stared out that window for what felt like hours, trying to figure out-

"What the _hell_ just happened?" Mike asked, giving voice to his thoughts.

"I..." Eddie shook his head, fucking baffled. "I don't know."

"They just met _yesterday._ What could they possibly have to talk about?" Mike grumbled. 

Eddie couldn't tear his eyes away from the curb. "I _don't_ know."

He thought about Richie ruffling Will's hair, pinching his cheeks...

_Honk honk! Call the ambulance! I think Girlyboy's got a bad case of the Queers!_

He looked away. That voice...he still couldn't place it. Something about last summer, Georgie, the house on Neibolt Street...

_Eddie, look at me!_

He was startled out of his thoughts by the sound of chair legs scraping on the floor.  He looked up to see Mike stalking away, heard the sound of stomping on stairs. Ten seconds later, a door slammed. Eddie sighed. He sat down, glaring at his arm, at the stupid fucking letters that he couldn't seem to get rid of. That's two doors slammed in his face today and it wasn't even 7 o'clock yet.

He'd forgotten all about Nancy sitting next to him until she tapped on his cast, her hand partly covering the middle of the words. 

"Hey..." she said sofly. "You wanna...hang out? I can show you around town and stuff since Mike is...busy."

Eddie looked up, mouth falling open. "I..." 

Why was she being so nice to him? She was older, and a _girl._ The last time an older girl had been nice to him...he glanced at the letters on his cast.

Nancy got up from her chair and started piling forgotten dishes up in her arms. Eddie scrambled to help her, getting the cups and following her over to the sink. 

"Alright," she said once they were done, dusting her hands off on her jeans.

"Let's get out of here." 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to those ppl who commented on the last chapter!! I'm really happy that ppl still care about this!! Anywaaayss, hope u enjoy this chapter (also, lemme know if anybody was out of character or anything cos lemme tell u,,,sometimes when I'm writing they all just blend together lmao)  
> Hmu on [my tumblr](http://nasally-voice.tumblr.com/) !!!


	10. Richard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie just can't say no to a cute boy...

 

"So, you gonna tell me where we're goin' yet, Wilbur?" Richie asked, his voice nearly lost in the wind as they shot down street after street, going double on Will's old Huffy, hot summer air blasting him in the face like the town of Hawkins itself had pointed a blowdryer directly at them. It'd been a while since they last left the Wheeler's front yard (Oh boy, seeing his snobby look-at-me-and-my-big-house-and-my-fancy-star-wars-toys _asshat_ of a clone cousin watching them through the kitchen window, face all scrunched up with confusion and—was that _jealousy,_ Mikey?—was like winning the fucking lottery on Christmas by the way), and Will hadn't said a word since then. Wherever they were headed, he was nervous about it, Richie could tell. Granted, he didn't seem as nervous as he had been the night before, Richie thinks. He wasn't even sure what'd freaked the kid out so much, just remembered him saying something about Mike, then the next think Richie knew, he was scrambling off of the curb, yanking his bike off the ground like he was running from someone.

 

(some _thing_ )

 

 _Jesus, Tozier,_ he thinks, feeling his face twist in annoyance. _Would ya get it together?_

It wasn't... _that_ —Richie knew it wasn't, no matter how much his hunk o' junk brain tried to tell him otherwise. The memories from last summer were getting fuzzier, occasionally fading in and out of Richie's mind at random, like music drifting from his old boombox on a stormy night. He would often find himself struggling to recall certain things—how they'd all met Mike, or just what the _hell_ had happened to Henry Bowers, little things that he _should've_ been able to pull out of his memory as easily as Stan could recite a paragraph of facts about hummingbirds. Of course, after some hard thinking and squinting at nothing in particular, Richie would find it all came back to one specific thing—the one memory that hadn't started to fade away yet, the _one memory_ that made him positive that it wasn't... _that._ Because Richie could still remember killing it, clear as fuckin' day. He could feel the cold wooden bat in his hands, feel the squelch of mud and piss and shit in his shoes. That _thing—_ the thing so bad that not even his brain would let him remember _exactly_ what it was—it was good and dead, courtesy _a la_ Losers Club.

Will probably just wanted to get Mike some nerd toy for his birthday and needed a second opinion—which is what Richie kept telling himself over and over, hoping it would help him forget the look that had flashed in Will's eyes the night before.

_Fear._

Unmistakable fucking fear, the same kind Richie saw when he looked at himself in the mirror— fear of remembering, of forgetting. It was always the bad stuff that stuck, he noticed—like gum on the bottom of his sneaker when it was hot out. Little things, never enough to count as a full memory. The white emptiness of Bev's eyes, the blood red letter _h_  carved into the fat of Ben's belly, the crumpled missing poster with Richie's face plastered on the front of it _why does it say I'm missing Bill why am I fucking missing?—_

 

_(you'll never sleep again, Trashmouth!)_

 

Maybe that's why he decided to meet a complete stranger, no questions asked (well, aside from the fact that Will was really cute, and God knows Richie just _can't_ say no to a cute boy—ask Eddie!). Sure, this kid was a big fucking question mark, and riding away with him on his bike in a town Richie had never been in before was _probably_ a stupid idea on his part. But...maybe if he could help this kid, this kid with the kind smile and the fear in his eyes, he could fucking help himself one day.

"Almost there," Will called back, swerving out of the way to avoid a flattened cola can lying in the middle of the road. Richie tightened his grip on the boy's shoulders, preferring not to start his morning off by slippin' off the business end of a bike. The thought brought something back to Richie, another blurry little half-memory bubbling up to the surface. Last summer. They'd been on Silver, he and Bill. They were going fast, faster than Richie had ever gone before in his entire life _—flying_ almost. It seemed like a good memory, on the outside at least, but there was something about it, something that didn't feel right. If only he could remember _why._

 _You don't want to remember, Richie_ , something inside him whispered. _Remembering is the last fucking thing you want._

It was like picking at a scab, Richie wouldn't be satisfied until it was all gone, leaving the new pink skin underneath. He knew that if he just dug a _little_ deeper—

"I'm sorry if this is weird," Will said suddenly, so quietly Richie almost didn't catch it. "I...I know you're probably confused, but I'll try to explain everything soon, I promise."

"Yeah, sure thing, Will," Richie replied, not liking the nervous thrung in the other boy's voice one bit.

They turned down another neighborhood street, each house looking exactly like the one next to it. Richie tries to count them as they road by, eventually giving up as they all seemed to blend together. Will was sticking to backroads, he suddenly noticed, riding past neighborhoods, family parks. He was skirting as far from the main part of Hawkins, the movie theater and arcade Richie spotted during the ride from the bus station were probably miles away. Richie tried to imagine his mom as they sped by—little Maggie. Playing hopscotch with that group of girls, sliding down the slide at that park, curly hair flying and face lit up in a smile. _Happy._

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't seem to wrap his head around it. Happy Maggie— _now that's A Good One_ , Richie thought.

 

* * *

 

 

Eventually, gravel streets morphed into dirt roads, and just when Richie was beginning to lose the feeling in his legs from all the standing, Will stuck out his sneaker and they skidded to a stop just short of the woods.

"Okay," the boy huffed, unhooking his bulging backpack from the handlebars and heaving it onto his back. "We have to walk the rest of the way from here." 

Richie squinted the faded, army green Jansport. PROPERTY OF WILL BYERS was written in bulky black marker just above the logo. There was a Pacman button on the little pouch that he thought was kinda cool, but that's not really was he was focused on.

"Say, what the hell is in there anyways?" Richie asked, stretching an arm out to flick the zipper. There must've been something big in it, it was practically bursting at the seams.

Will gave him a meaningful look that he didn't understand.

"You'll see."

He trudged ahead, leaving Richie to follow him.   
  
_Oh God, he's gonna take me into the woods and murder me isn't he?_

Richie shrugged. Good way to go as any, he figured. 

He followed the green backpack and the boy attached to it into the unknown woods.

They walked for a while, Will seemingly knowing exactly where he was going. The summer sun beat down through the leafy trees above in streaks, shining directly into Richie's eye once in a while. Insects buzzed by his ears, twigs crunching under his sneakers. He enjoyed this kind of quiet, the kind where he could hear birds chirping and leaves rustling. Not completely silent. He hated it when it was silence. Reminded him too much of his house, the way it always seemed gooddamn void of anything alive. It was always the same at _casa de Tozier._ His dad would come home from work, flip on the television. Later, his mom would bring in dinner—something microwaveable. They would watch television for a while, usually a gameshow. Then they would go to sleep. All in silence. _Wash, rinse, repeat_. Sometimes Richie tried to talk to them, tried to make a joke or do an impression here and there, but it was like...like they didn't even hear him, like he was talking to himself in an empty room.

 _Empty,_ that was a good word to describe Maggie and Wentworth Tozier. Fucking empty. And maybe Richie was too. Sometimes he felt it, building up in his chest—the emptiness, threatening to consume him, eat him alive. 

He refused to let it.

It was a while before Will spoke again. 

"Hawkins used to be a railroad town back in the 20's," he began, ducking to avoid a low hanging branch. Richie did the same. "Over 50 percent of the jobs depended on some type of train labor, meaning almost everybody worked at one of the three junctions in town—manufacturing parts, taking care of the trains, loading 'em—stuff like that." Will took a sharp turn as he talked, and Richie suddenly realized he was following a path. Not an actual path, more like a trail of footprints and trampled leaves. Will went on talking. "Then the Great Depression hit. Tons of people lost their jobs, and eventually, all three junctions were shut down." Richie frowned, nearly tripping over an upturned branch in the process. Why was Will telling him this?

"The main station was eventually converted into...into Hawkins Lab back in the 60's for... _research_ purposes. The other two were shut down for good." Will looked back at him, something like determination burning in his eyes.

" _Demolished_."

Richie gulped.

"One of 'em—the one on the other side of town—that's where they put all the old out of commission trains. And the other..."

They'd come to the end of the trail, a broken chain link fence partially hidden behind trees and brush blocking they're way. NO TRESSPASSING, a large red sign hooked to it said. 

There was a hole in the fence, somebody had come up and cut the chain link at knee length, just big enough to fit a small person. "The other is kind of like the unofficial city dump. Come on." 

Will slid easily though the break in the fence.

Richie?—Not so much.

"Fuck...shit— _ouch,"_ he muttered, struggling to squeeze his gangly limbs through the break. Stupid...cute boys getting him caught in stupid fences. A jagged piece of chain link caught him on the sleeve just as he'd pushed through, tearing a hole through the fabric. Oh gee wiz, the Jewish Boys of Excellence were gonna be so disappointed! His honorary Jew membership might even be revoked!

Richie chuckled to himself before following Will further into the junkyard.

There wasn't much to see, mostly just old clunkers and abandoned engine parts, but Will seemed hellbent on getting to the broke down, sun-bleached school bus on the furthest end.

He looked back to make sure Richie was following. Richie gave him a thumbs up and a grin, nearly falling face first into a vat of car oil in the process. Fucking untied laces would be the death of him.

He watched Will tug the doors open with ease. _Yep, he's definitely done this before._ Then he disappeared inside, the old bus groaning quietly under his weight. Richie clambered up after him.

The inside of the bus was just as damaged as the outside, if not worse. The seats had been torn out, uprooted as if something rabid had been there. Sun filtered throught the dusty windows in faint streaks of light, casting a faint glow in the otherwise dark bus. Candy wrappers and cigarette buds littered the floor, not to mention it smelled like straight _ass_ in there, _jesus._  All of this, added onto the already present of vibe that every school bus ever made had. _Abandon all hope, ye who enter here_.

The whole thing was giving Richie a severe case of the heebie-jeebies.

"H-heh...well good thing is, we got our pick of seats," he joked weakly, if only to break the tension filled silence. "What _is_ this place anyways?" 

Will kicked an empty condom wrapper with the toe of his sneaker. "I guess you can call it _Make-out Point_ ," he said, making air quotes with his fingers as he said it. "This old school bus has been here, probably since the beginning of time, I guess. Kids have been using it since then."

Richie grinned. "Ohhh, so _that's_ why you brought me here, William, you absolute _dog."_

The boy's cheeks turned rosy, eyes widening. Cute. "N-no! I would never—!"

Richie laughed. "Will, chillax man. I'm joking." 

"O-oh. Right," Will laughed nervously— _suspiciously,_ Richie thinks. "In that case, follow me." 

The boy headed towards the middle of the bus—to one of the only few seats left that hadn't been uprooted. He sat down directly behind it, criss-cross-applesauce.

"Are we hiding or somthin'?" Richie asked, sitting across from Will so that their knees met on either side, forming sort of a diamond of empty space between their crossed legs. Will shouldered off his backpack and set it down in between them. "Sorta."

It was quiet for a minute as Will fiddled with the trick zipper of his Jansport, the soft rattle of the Pacman button filling the empty bus.

With a final tug, Will unzipped the backpack, revealing it's contents.

And inside was...

"An alarm clock?" Richie asked. He squinted at the little black box in Will's hands. Well, it looked a lot like an alarm clock, at least. Buttons and dials covered the face of it, surrounding the glowing orange screen about the side of a pack of gum. There were tiny speakers on each side. It looked kind of like Eddie's calculator watch, only a lot bigger. A large metal antenna stuck out the back of it.

Will laughed softly. "No, its a frequency scanner—Dustin's, but he let me borrow it." He pressed a button (just how the fuck he knew _which_ button to press, Richie couldn't figure out), and the little box came to life with a quiet beeping sound. Will pulled out the antenna until it stretched out about foot above the floor, the soft hum of static filling the abandoned bus. Then he went to work, pressing buttons and spinning dials like he was Alex Rogan from _The Last Starfighter_ , operating his very own spaceship.

"See, the frequency scanner kinda works kind of like a car radio," Will explained. "This dial right here? It's the channel changer. You can turn it right or left, and it'll give you different volumes of frequencies." He spun the dial around, and Richie could—well, _hear_ wasn't the right word. He could _feel_ it almost, the low staticy hum coursing through his body, pulsating at the tips of his fingers.

"And frequencies? They're kinda like radio stations, see?" Will worked on the dial a little while longer, tongue poking out the corner of his mouth in concentration. His other hand was wrapped around the antenna, moving it around ever so slightly, like he was trying to get a good signal on a television set.

"That should do it," Will said finally. Richie squinted at the box. Nothing was happening. "This a joke?" He raised an eyebrow at the boy across from him. 

"Like I said before, frequencies are like radio stations..." Will explained patiently. "Just like there's a rock station, or—or a smooth jazz station, there's different frequencies too." He unzipped the front pocket of his backpack and produced a pair of walkie-talkies from its contents. Nothing special—the cheap kind you can buy from the Radioshack for a couple of bucks. He flipped 'em both on and handed one to Richie. "...Some are high pitched, screeching, others are low humming but some. _Some_ are so high that they can't even be heard by humans, only by technology. Its called interference." Will turned on the walkie-talkie and spoke into it. "See, you can hear me now..." His voice drifted from the speaker of Richie's walkie-talkie a second later, an echo made of static.

"But when I do this..."Will pressed a button on the scanner, and both walkies went completely static. 

"Radio silence," Richie finished, frowning at the it.

"Exactly," Will said. "The frequency puts out interference, kind of like a big wall, blocking any other sort of possible connection," he explained.

"Well aren't you a regular Egon Spengler," Richie said, quite enjoying the way Will's face lit up at the compliment. "But I still don't get it. What's with the science lesson?"

Will took a deep breath, nervous energy rising up in his face again. "Okay," he said, his voice sounding rushed. "I don't have much time, I think. The interference—I'm hoping it will block out their listening devices long enough for me to explain everything, or at least enough of everthin—"

"Woah, woah, slow down Speed Racer," Richie said, "Listening devices? Will, what the fuck is going on?"

Will took a shuttering breath. "Right. Sorry, sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself. Uh—you remember what I said about Hawkins Lab?"

Richie nodded. "Yeah, the old train junction, the one they converted into a research lab, right?"

"Right. Well, when I said research..."Will glanced at the scanner. "I meant _...testing._  You know, bombs, tech—for The Cold War, beating the Russians and all that."

"Uh-huh..." Richie said, not quite understanding where this was going.

"Hawkins Lab—they've got a hold over this town, Richie," Will was whispering now, his voice filtering over the static coursing through Richie's body. "They've got cameras and...listening decices and who knows _what_ else. _Watching_ our every move."

Will glanced at the scanner, like he was afraid even _that_ was listening. "Its why I brought you here, why I need the interference. Its because what I'm about to tell you—if they know that _you_ know..."

Will didn't say anything after that, left the words suspended in the hot, dry air inside the bus, like a bad smell.

 

_(You'll be in danger.)_

 

"I need your help with something," Will said finally. "And I can't tell you what it is yet because saying yes might get you into trouble, Richie," Will looked up at him. "You can say no, and avoid this whole mess. I wouldn't hold it against you, either. Just...tell me now, and we can go back to Mike's and forget this ever—"

"I'll help." Richie said.

Will stopped. "You...you will?"

A hot summer breeze drifted through one of the bus's broken windows. A crow cawed somewhere off in the distance. _A sign of death_ , Stan's voice said somewhere in his head. He ignored it.

"Sure. I mean, let me tell ya, I'm not cousin Mike's biggest fan, but Will, _we're_ friends now—you and me—whether you like it or not." He grinned. "You're stuck with me, kid."  

For a second, Will almost looked like he djdnt believe him. Then, slowly, a tentative smile spread across his face.

"Alright, so tell me this big secret you've been holdin' out from me, Byers. I don't think I can wait any longer."

Will scoffed, shaking is head. "I'll tell you. But you won't believe me."

Richie raised an eyebrow.

" _Try me_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 10 Is done!! I really love the idea of Richie and Will being friends and I'm trying my best to write it, but as always, please tell me if anyone was out of character so I can fix it in the future!! Big thanks to those who comment on this fic and on [my tumblr](http://nasally-voice.tumblr.com/) !!!  
> (also, don't take all that stuff about the frequencies seriously outside of this fic, I just made it up to fit the chapter y'all lmaoo. Its probably not scientifically correct, but hey, neither is a girl who can do telekinesis or an evil sewer clown either, so ig we're even steven.)


	11. Eddie Upsetti

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie and Nancy? New brotp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uhh this chapter is gonna be kinda short? I was gonna make it part Eddie Pov, part Will pov, but I ultimately decided on Eddie by himself because I didn't wanna keep this fic on hold any longer. So yeah,, enjoy!
> 
> (And for those of you who've noticed, I switched the 1st and 2nd chapters because I've always liked the second one better. Also, I've changed the chapter names to be more unique cos y not)

Eddie never thought he could be so _miserable_ while listening to Cyndi Lauper.

He sat in the passenger seat of Nancy's old yellow bug, eyes unfocused on the road as it sped by outside his window. He wasn't sure where they were headed - Nancy had ushered him into her car in the driveway and told him to buckle up with a grin before starting up the engine with a _chk chk chk_ and taking off down Maple Street. Girls Just Wanna Have Fun bopped out of the car's old radio, Cyndi Lauper belting out the infatuatingly catchy lyrics like she was having the time of her life.

 _That makes one of us_ , Eddie thinks glumly, fingers absentmindedly tracing one particular name inked onto the white of his cast.

The song echoed in his head emptily, muffled - like it was in a language Eddie didn't understand.

 

( _The phone rings in the middle of the night,_

_My father yells what you gonna do with your life?)_

Richie left him. Just up and walked away to hang out with some kid he'd only just met, wearing Eddie's shorts. What were they doing, anyways? - probably lying together on that Will-kid's bed, listening to The Cure and talking about life, his brain supplied helpfully. Eddie chewed on his bottom lip, fighting back a great big pout that he knew Richie would _totally_ tease him for - you know, if he weren't with someone else. Eddie just couldn't stop picturing the two of them, Richie making Will laugh, ruffling his hair...

 

( _Girls, they want,_

_Wanna have fun,_

_Girls,_

_Wanna - )_

 

"You know, sulking isn't really a good look on you," the girl with the trademark Wheeler freckles commented from the driver's seat, clear blue eyes meeting Eddie's hazel ones in the rear view mirror.

Nancy Wheeler was a lot like the girls Eddie's mother always tried to warn him about - the kind that didn't exactly follow the prom queen Gretta Keene aesthetic that she loved so much, the kind of girls like Bev - _cool girls_. Everything about Nancy almost seemed too cool, from the way she pulled her curly hair out of her face and tied it with a bright red scrunchie to the way she dressed - a nearly oversized Smiths T-shirt tucked loosely into a soft blue jean pencil skirt, silver buttons all down the front if it.

"Oh really? What _is,_ then? Abandonment?" Eddie sighed, rolling his eyes. "I hear that's in style this summer."

Nancy laughed. "No I'm pretty sure desperation is the hottest look these days," she joked, catching Eddie's eye with a hopeful grin. He cracked a smile at that, and things became a little clearer then, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun sounding less like an echo in the back of Eddie's mind and more like a song.

Almost.

"Why are you being so nice to me?" He asked suddenly, that familiar tight ball of suspicion in his chest becoming too much for him. Eddie knew what happened when pretty older girls started being nice. Bubblegum was popped, lips smacked, pens uncapped...

Nancy frowned, and he fumbled for the right words. "I mean...I'm not an idiot, okay? Girls like you don't talk to guys like me unless..." Eddie sighed. "...well I guess what I'm trying to say is, if this is some kind of joke and you're gonna..." he could feel himself choking up, fists clenching in his lap - _holy shit please don't cry_. "If you're gonna leave me stranded or something like that...t-the least you can do is show me around first s-so I know how to find my way back," his lip trembled and God, Eddie hated himself right now, _fuck_.

"Hey..." Nancy said softly, hand coming up to rest on his arm again. Eddie found himself studying the chipped, blue paint on her fingernails - _pretty_.

"That's not what I'm doing at all," she said quietly. Eddie made the mistake of looking up at her face, hating that look of sadness and pity in her eyes that he put there - God, how much more pathetic could he get? - he was about to cry in Richie's cousin's car at 7 in the fucking morning.

"Oh," he laughed awkwardly, looking away. "Well then you could just...uh...forget all that stupid stuff I just said...It was stupid," he rubbed the palms of his hands on his shorts nervously.

He could still feel Nancy looking at him as he pressed a cheek to the warm glass of his window - blue-painted fingernails drumming nervously against the steering wheel out of the corner of his eye.

"Listen, about all of that in the kitchen..." she said finally, switching off the radio and dousing the car in a Cyndi Lauper-less silence.

"Oh, you mean back when my supposed best friend and his clone - who doesn't even know me enough to hate me yet, by the way - ditched me within a minute of each other?" Eddie laughed bitterly. "Yeah that was fun - great way to kick off the summer," he rolled his eyes.

She sighed. "Guys can be dicks sometimes. No offense."

Eddie scoffed, watching the pine air-freshener that hung from the rear view mirror sway softly. "None taken."

"Mike doesn't hate you, you know - he's kind of...engrossed in his own world like, 24/7," Nancy rolled her eyes. "And he's like, super protective over Will. When he saw your friend hop in that bike...well let's just say the kid's probably up in his room planning Richie's death right about now."

"Maybe I'll join him," Eddie pouted, looking back down at his own hands. They lay folded in his lap, nails clipped and clean - nothing like Richie's, big and knobby and covered in freckles and pen markings.

_Ugh, Richie._

"But enough about Bert and Ernie, anyways," Nancy said with an eyeroll, honking the car horn for effect - someone walking along the sidewalk outside flipped them off, but Nancy either didn't notice or didn't care. "We're here!"

They pulled into a the parking lot of a tiny little business - a pretty pink building, pleasantly aged and bright and colorful in the early morning light. Scoops Ahoy, the neon letters above the clean glass doors spelled out. An ice-cream parlor.

 _2nd Location coming to you soon at Starcourt Mall!_ , The bright green sign in one of the windows told Eddie.

Nancy parked the car closest to the entrance and killed the engine, casting Eddie a reassuring smile that settled warmly in the pit of his stomach. "Ice cream always puts me in a good mood when I feel like shit," she said, not un-kindly. "Come on," she coaxed, catching the unsure look that was no doubt plastered on Eddie's face before poking him playfully in his side, a grin on her face, "My treat."

She got out of the little car and threw the yellow door close behind her before stepping onto the curb, towards the entrance. Eddie did the same, only stopping for a second to eye the sign again - welcoming that sick little feeling in his chest like an old friend.

_Eddieeee, you mustn't eat those icky sweets! You'll rot your teeth!_

When he was small, Eddie would cry at the thought talking with rotten stubs, turning his gums black and his tongue green with bacteria. _They'll rot your teeth, Eddie, you'll rot Eddie. Rot rot rot rotteninyourmouth_ -

But Eddie wasn't small anymore.

He followed Nancy into the ice cream parlor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comment and tell me what you think!!!
> 
> Also give me validation on on [my tumblr](http://nasally-voice.tumblr.com/) because why not?


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